


Open Up Next to You

by orphan_account



Series: Undeniable: The Vampire Mate Bond Series [1]
Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: AU, Angst, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-26
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-02 13:47:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 55,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years after the events of Eclipse, Edward meets his true vampire mate; Bella is left desolate. Alice and Jasper take her in with them to help her through her heartbreak. Rated for mature relationship issues. **Banner by evieeden. Thank you so much!**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Full of Good Intent

**Author's Note:**

> The story's title is from Sara Bareilles' song "Breathe Again" and each of the chapter titles are inspired from her Kaleidoscope Heart album.
> 
> My thanks to wolvesnvamps for her Labor Day contest in A Different Forest that gave birth to this plot bunny.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is fanfic. You know it. I know it. All things Twilight are the intellectual property of Stephenie Meyer. I'm just messin' with her characters. Feel sorry for them.

[ ](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0jXxhOop9WKvNK9SyeaxESXkLgrtxqHHBv4P-vobVoM?feat=embedwebsite)

* * *

**Chapter 1: All Full of Good Intent**

"Come on, tell me. How bad can it be?" Trepidation skittered down her spine, but Bella tried to play it off, lying on their bed in the Cullen home. They hadn't lived there for a while, since they'd been at college and then on a truncated European tour to celebrate Bella earning her first degree (as _Marie Masen_ , because it hadn't been all that long since _Isabella Swan_ had been in some news outlets), but the room was theirs because it held their bed and stored belongings.

The Cullens kept rooms for all their members, even when one or more felt the need to be separate for a while. Or a year. Or a decade.

Edward was all but gasping, reminding his wife of a man about to propose marriage. She didn't remember _that_ too clearly, but Edward did and he had shared with her his concerns about possibly faking a bullet wound...

* * *

In retrospect, Bella regarded the terrifying prospect of telling her parents that yes, she was following in their footsteps and getting married young, was not as bad as she made it out to be in her imagination. Charlie never threatened Edward with his service weapon. Renée only went a _little_ ballistic – over the phone – but Edward's rich persuasive techniques won her over.

Renée was not the most sensible of mothers, but she loved her only child. Bella tried to be sensible, and Edward did, too. Edward's rationale that "marriage was the lesser of two commitments" – the greater being changed into a _vampire_ – made all kinds of sense.

"I want you," he had rasped into her ear the day after they had told everyone in both families that yes, they were officially engaged to be married.

And because she was feeling perverse, or teasing, or _something_ , Bella held off on having sex until they were married. Not that they hadn't done other things — _a lot_ of other things — before they consummated their marriage.

"You said you desensitized yourself to my blood," she murmured against his throat one night in her room. "Maybe you should try that for the rest of me."

He inhaled sharply. "I wish I could know what you're thinking, Isabella Swan," he half-growled as her tongue traced a line from his ear to his collarbone.

She laughed, a sultry sound heavy with desire, and he grew more aroused than he could remember having been before. Deliberately, he clenched his fists while keeping her in his arms. She noted that, but did not comment. Instead, she shook her head so that her hair fanned over his chest and shoulder. "No, I don't think you would." Her lips brushed his ear as she continued, "You might break another piece of furniture and I couldn't explain that to Charlie."

Edward had agreed that "desensitization" was probably wise, under the circumstances. The entire Cullen family had teased the engaged couple, but Bella knew that they were actually relieved and pleased.

And when their wedding night came, they stayed in a cozy cottage that was a gift from Esme. "We know you'll feel more comfortable," the lovely woman said with warmth and compassion. "And I know Edward will probably enjoy the slight distance."

The newlywed vampire male grinned, his face alight with such happy good humor that Bella caught her breath. "Oh yes," he answered his notional mother figure. "Absolutely."

* * *

"This is good," Bella had told her new husband in a luxurious, post-coital moment on their honeymoon. "I could stay human for a while..."

Edward had leapt at her idea, and they agreed that she would remain human until she turned twenty-one. And then, they had made love until her fragile human body suffered from the sheer excess of pleasure his vampiric body could impart to it.

From their honeymoon to college to getting half-through with a degree in Biology — "Why not?" she had asked Edward when he wondered about her major. "It's where we met, after all!" — Bella had lived a blissful, human life. Surrounded by a supernatural family. She and Edward had a small house and a vibrant sex life. His delight in her humanity helped him to ignore the perpetual fire in his throat. Her delight in feeling so much as a human helped her ignore the small changes to herself that indicated aging.

At one family holiday party, Jasper pulled Bella into a quick embrace. "I cannot begin to tell you what a gift it is to feel so much joy coming from that man right there," he whispered with a nod to Edward. Alice grinned at her mate's side and Bella let out a happy breath.

"I'm glad there was something I could give you, then, that you didn't have already!"

The laugh the family shared was as good as a symphony.

* * *

'Oh, Bella. I – it _is_ that bad," Edward muttered. He heard the family clear out of the Montana home, but knew that Jasper and Alice had stayed close by, just in case. Had his sister seen this coming?

Jasper knew something was wrong. He knew what it was too, Edward heard in his thoughts. He had let the matter rest, though. Perhaps the empath understood the inevitability of this revelation.

With a tentative expression, Edward took his wife's hands in his own as they sat on their bed. "I have loved you more than my own life," he began, hardly daring to look into her eyes.

She smiled at him and squeezed his hands. "I know. Me, too. And I loved the trip! I was just sorry we had to cut it short. We didn't even make it to Italy."

He frowned and dropped a quick, nearly frantic kiss on the back of one of her hands.

* * *

"It burns!" she had told Edward when she "woke up" from her change. The need to feed had been every bit as violent as the Cullens had warned her. Her hunts had been successful, however, and Edward's face shone on the day her eyes lost all reddish tints and became as golden as the rest of the family's.

"I really want to finish my degree now," Bella had told them all at one of the "dining room meetings." She held up a hand when a general protest arose. "I know, I'm young, but I think I'll be all right around humans."

Carlisle nodded slowly. "I think we should give you a few months to desensitize yourself, Bella."

Bella met her husband's eyes and smiled that private smile that intimacy lends to a couple. Jasper snorted and shook his head indulgently at the pair of them. Of course, Bella reflected, he would have picked up on the double entendre inherent in the word... A quick flaring of embarrassment preceded a longer span of amusement. "All right."

To facilitate this, Jasper and Alice had accompanied Edward and Bella on many forays into humanity. Jasper would interpret her emotional reaction to the people they encountered — first in small groups, then they would immerse themselves in a grocery store to be surrounded by distracting, noisome vegetable and deli odors before moving on to larger venues — as Edward read the minds of the others and Alice acted if something heinous would occur in the near future.

"You're fine," Jasper murmured, his hand on her shoulder. Bella gripped Edward's hand and Alice walked behind them all, her mind scanning all possible futures. The seer's subconscious kept her following her mate as they wound through a shopping mall – Bella's final exam, of sorts, before enrolling in college.

"How long are we staying?" Bella whispered in a normative human voice. Whispering drew attention, yes, but she didn't want to draw even more by doing anything inhuman while they were at the mall.

Edward squeezed her fingers and leaned over to kiss the top of her head. "We're going to try for four hours, love. Hold your breath if you have to."

They wandered about, making small purchases from a video game store – Alice and Edward often played those since both of their gifts were somewhat nullified in so doing – and a bookstore.

"Nothing," Jasper insisted when Bella questioned him, "takes the place of a book. I know Emmett likes the e-readers, but a book by itself is a perfect companion. And it doesn't need batteries," he added with a teasing grin at his mate.

"Hey!"

Turns out, they all enjoyed their own "perfect companions" in peace in the Food Court. Bella, though, had her awareness extended as the court filled with heartbeats and hot blood.

_Blood. Blood. Blood. Thump-thump. Thump-thump._

"Hang on there, Little Sister," Jasper murmured. Edward held one of her hands with feigned casualness. Alice turned pages on her book – Frank Lloyd Wright's designs – absently. Her mind was not on the full-color images before her, but on the possible disasters that could occur if Bella's tension snapped.

Bella kept breathing, reminding herself that the darling boy over there with the gap-toothed smile was not a snack — he was the curly-haired woman's son. The older woman with the tantalizing aroma over _there_ was someone's daughter, too. Certainly. One by one, she assigned humanity to the prey and overcame her instinctive need to drain them all.

Jasper breathed easier when he felt her bloodlust cool. Edward, hearing Jasper's silent assessment, smiled proudly at his wife. Alice blew out a loud breath. "I'm ready for a snack!"

"What, squirrels?" Jasper teased his diminutive lady.

She snorted.

* * *

Edward had never been this nervous. This upset. He felt himself near to hyperventilation — absurd for a vampire! His dearest Bella. His salvation. _His first love._

And that was the rub, wasn't it?

"Bella... I do apologize for cutting short your — our — celebration. I would only have done so under great duress."

She smiled sweetly into his eyes, but a probing curiosity was being shadowed by a bit of impatience in her gaze. He did not blame her in the least; his behavior had been unconscionable — inexplicable. "And...?" she prompted as he delayed his dreadful revelation yet again.

* * *

"College is way easier as a vampire," Bella declared, flinging her school books to the dining table she and Edward used to do homework in their new house.

Her husband chuckled as he slipped his shoes off his feet and enjoyed the texture of the woven area rug with sensitive feet. "It is. I've never majored in French Literature before, so I am actually studying."

"My lab group is coming over tonight," Bella said as she joined him on the sofa. Black leather and colorful throw pillows were the theme of the room. It looked smooth but comfortable. Well-to-do trust fund babies off at school.

Edward sighed a little. "All right. How visible am I?"

She smiled and moved to straddle his lap. "Not naked, but entirely visible."

He flashed a grin. "Not naked? Too bad...I had plans for tonight."

Her eyes darkened as she pressed herself against him. "We don't have to sleep..."

"I know," he rumbled.

Conversation ceased entirely and, when Bella's lab group arrived with awed expressions, they were also amused at their hostess' sex-mussed hair and the way her husband's shirt was only half-tucked into his jeans.

* * *

"And... I love you." Edward's face was set, his jaw more granite-like than usual.

"I love you, too. We didn't jump on the earliest jet home because we are in love, sweetheart." When he didn't continue, Bella tugged her hands from his and lifted his head so that they _had_ to have eye contact. "What. Is. It." Humor had waned as she grew physically tense. If she had still been human, her stomach would have been in knots. "Edward. Please." Her only ideas involved the Volturi or maybe those Romanians she had heard about at a family conference once.

"Vampires get married as love-matches. We do. But that isn't the — the ideal."

Ice. She was turning to ice. "We're a love match. You once said – you once thought we were —. We were. We were —." She couldn't push the word out, all of a sudden. A rock in her throat seemed to prevent her.

"I _thought_ we _were_."


	2. Goodbye

**  
**

* * *

Her mind spinning, Bella flashed to the picture window on the far wall and stared unseeing at the late summer landscape of Montana. Glacier National Park was off to the north – she could see the mountains... She didn't know their names, but had looked forward to hiking the Park. With Edward. With Edward, whom she had believed to be her —

"I thought we were _mates_ ," she whispered at the window.

He stood; she could see his reflection. "I know. I had so many fears, Bella. So many worries when I changed you." When she didn't answer, he continued. "I worried you'd hate me for the pain I put you through." She shook her head in silent denial. "I was afraid you'd forget everything — even that we were married. That you'd not love me anymore. That everything would change."

"I love you," she protested, sounding hurt and small.

He stepped closer, one hand tentatively extended. "I love you, too. In, in a way."

After dragging one final breath into her lungs, Bella turned. "In a _way_?" Her arms were wrapped about her torso, her eyes wide and dark and frightened. "What does that mean?"

"It means that — that out of all the things I was afraid of, Bella, I never ever thought I would not be your mate when you changed. But when you awakened, got through the initial adjustments, I could read it in Jasper's mind. We did not share a vampire mate bond."

His voice as he pushed that out was hard, academic, but edged in such pain as she had never heard from him before. She responded in a tone that echoed his. "Bronwyn."

"Yes."

The house was still as if frozen in time. Edward and Bella were as marble statues, facing one another across a chasm of disbelief.

* * *

"Alistair of York, Isabella Cullen. My wife," Edward had said in proud introduction.

The vampire in front of Bella had the look of a man in his thirties. He nodded tersely and directed a hand behind himself, snapping his fingers with a resounding, stony sound. "Isabella. Edward. How is Carlisle?" he inquired in a sharp manner, his newly-fed red eyes narrowing in impatience.

"He's doing well, and he asked us to give you his greetings."

"Hm. You will have news for him. I have a daughter. Bronwyn?"

"Coming, Father!" The words sounded like music with an accent of Wales, and Bella was entranced. A female emerged from the stairwell in the old York estate, her black hair held back in a braid to reveal an elegant oval face, full lips and the crimson eyes of the relatively newborn vampire. "Hello!"

"Your daughter?" Edward asked with half a smile. "We had heard that you preferred your solitude."

Bronwyn eyed Alistair with a look that combined resignation, humor and the last vestiges of resentment. "He does, and so he's often told me. I was supposed to be his dinner, but the park lighting surprised him." Alistair grunted. Bronwyn grinned mischievously. "He was angry with me during my entire change." She stepped forward, hand extended. "So you're from the States?"

Edward made the introductions again, Bella shaking hands with the newborn before Edward did likewise. A look of panic overtook his features, then. Bronwyn appeared dazed.

Bella put it down to any female meeting Edward Cullen for the first time. And then, it was time to leave.

* * *

"She's – she's your mate?" Feeling shattered in every possible way, Bella couldn't seem to move, except for her mouth. "Bronwyn?" Alistair's sired daughter had been a beauty, of course, as most of their kind tended to be. Bella's dead heart felt as if it were torn open within her icy chest.

"She's not — she hunts _humans_ , Edward..."

"I know." Truly, it wasn't something he had given much thought to, since the moment Bronwyn had shaken hands with him.

"She's pretty," was Bella's next whispered observation.

"Yes, but Bella, that has nothing to do with — with the bond."

His heart hurt for her, so much. He wanted to embrace her, to comfort her as he would for any pain she ever suffered. He would still give himself for her if she needed him to, to keep her safe, but —

But there was nothing he could do. "I never wanted this," he murmured, daring at last to approach her, fingers almost twitching with the desire to soothe. If he could know what she was thinking, perhaps he could make this easier?

 _Edward. Don't make this harder._ Jasper's thoughts reached him, making him wince. He must really be emoting strongly. Well, of course. He was breaking his wife's heart. And he did love her — he loved her in a way stronger than friendship, deeper than family, but not as a wife. Not anymore.

"I should go," Bella said. She had always been brave. More brave than anyone he had ever met. "And let you —"

"No!" The shout came from his throat, but Edward heard the echoes from Alice and Jasper in his mind. Bella winced — perhaps his brother had flung a wave of protest toward them — and purposefully relaxed her arms. Edward took a breath. "No, you're a part of this family."

"I'm only a part of it — a Cullen — because of you, Edward. If you have a mate, now..."

"You'll find yours, Bella," he inserted almost desperately in the need to say something, anything, to the silent mind before him. "You will."

It was as if she didn't hear him. "I'll go. We can get an annulment and —"

The word almost broke him and in his mind, he heard Jasper's mental reeling with the combined pain from himself and Bella. "That's like saying we never existed, Bella. No, I can't."

"Well, what the _hell_ do you suggest then?" With wide-flung arms, she practically exploded. "We can't stay _married_ if you don't love me! I can't be here if you're here, Edward. I can't. I just —"

Feeling almost as if his chest had been cracked open, Edward did embrace her then, wrapping his arms around her in a way that was so desperately familiar and so oddly not-quite-right. Inhaling her unique fragrance did not ease him as it used to do. Her body felt almost as Alice's did, to him. Familiar, but _familial_. He closed his eyes and let a long, quiet breath pass from his body as ideas and plans sped through his mind.

"I have to leave."

"I know."

"I — I don't know that I'll be back."

A pause. "Oh. But, this is your family."

"And she hunts humans...?"

"If you're mates, won't she want to change for you?"

He left his arms about her, but in a more casual way. They both turned to face the window once more. No voices called in his mind, but Edward knew Jasper and Alice were not far. A sudden vision came to him from Alice. A flash of Bronwyn's ink-black hair and her body on a thick-furred bear answered any questions. "I think she will, because it will be the best thing to do. For – for us."

Bella flinched and moved out of his arms. "So. So now what?"

"You can stay."

"No, no I can't."

Guilt, fear and worry for her lashed over his skin. "You don't have to, but I want you to be — to be okay, Bella. I'll make sure you never want for anything." Never in his worst ideas of existence, including the waking nightmare he lived through when he left her once, had he imagined that he would have this discussion with her.

"Okay? _Okay?_ You've just told me I'm going to be eternally separated from the only man I've ever loved and you want me to be _okay_?" In a burst of fury, she screamed, her fists clenched at her sides, eyes squeezed shut. Edward froze in uncertainty —

Until he was assaulted by a flurry of images, of words, of thoughts mentally spoken in a voice he had never heard quite in this way. Bella's mind opened to him for the first time in their years together, and he was overwhelmed, collapsing at her feet.

Waking up to his face. Perfection. _My love, my love, my love..._

Atop him, his face taut in ecstasy as she brought him to sexual climaxes he had never experienced the first time they made love _after_ she became a vampire. _Yes, yes, yes!_

 _Oh, Edward._ His face layered upon every experience she had had since awakening.

And then, in a fuzzy, half-seen memory, she brought forth the moment he had always thought of as the nadir of his life:

 _Of course, I'll always love you, in a way..._ Her human eyes saw him only as through a dark mirror, compared to the clarity of her sight now, but she was able to find this memory and bring it forth.

And then: _Edward? What's wrong?_

Her mind closed with the mental equivalent of a clanging door and was silent again. Bella knelt at his side, her hands on his cheeks. "Edward? What's wrong?"

His voice broke. "Bella — I could hear you. Your, your mind. I saw —"

Memories crashed over her. Pain etched her face. "I know. How did that happen?" She had treasured her mental privacy over the years. "Can you still?" _Can you hear how devastated I am? Can you see me crying, deep inside?_

"I don't know. It was as if the shielding over your mind lifted when you screamed." Their faces crunched simultaneously, remembering. "I'm so sorry."

"Me, too."

Outside the house, Jasper and Alice held one another for mutual solace. He was battered by the painful emotions within, as well as the heartbreak his mate was experiencing. Her dearest brother and her best friend were going to divorce, apparently. Jasper knew from the way Alice held her head that she was seeing visions of the future, and that they filled her with sorrow. A point of sadness formed between her eyebrows, her mouth puckered against any verbal outpouring of her unhappiness.

"Jenks," she whispered.

Nodding, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "All right." He was their man of business and had been for a long time. In his sixties now, the man had made quite the fortune handling the Cullen Coven's business and legal affairs. He could be trusted with a divorce...

The sun moved overhead and soon, the family began to return to the Montana compound where they all lived. Where they had thought they would all live together, now that Edward and Bella had returned from Europe.

"Jasper?" Rosalie whispered, her expression reserved. "What the hell is going on?"

"Alice?" Esme asked at the same moment. "Are they still...talking?"

The six of them held still outside in the late afternoon, listening to the sounds of a closet door opening, to the strange empty-echoing of a zipper on a suitcase, to the sliding of drawers in a dresser as someone was packing again.

"Why aren't they talking?" Emmett finally asked. He felt swamped by the silence and his nature pulsed for action to alleviate the feeling.

"Shhh!"

The sounds of movements in the upstairs bedroom ceased. "You can come in," Bella called softly. The Cullens outside hesitated, looking one another in the eyes, checking to get a nod from Alice — she was their seer and they relied on her perhaps more than they needed — before they stepped through the set of French doors with their red oak frames. Though they were all possessed of supernatural speed, they moved quite slowly, as if each second of delay would perhaps change the course of events ahead of them. Alice's pinched face and Jasper's darkened eyes indicated trauma of some type.

They all knew that something had been wrong between Edward and Bella from the moment they called to say they were cutting the European tour short and coming home. Dread had hung over the entire house, it seemed, over the past few days while the family did their very best to give the newest couple some sort of privacy. Smiles had been superficial, laughter brittle, and even the one family hunt they had taken together had been unsatisfying. Something was wrong and it needed to be fixed.

Jasper grimaced, buffering himself against the onslaught of further emotional lashings, as his brother and sister emerged on the upper landing. "Hey," Bella said first.

"Hi," Edward offered afterward. They exchanged a swift look and Bella fisted her hands at her sides and closed her eyes. Edward nodded and Carlisle recognized the look for what it was — Bella had found some way to open her mind to her husband!

Excitement shot through him, but he put it away immediately. This communication had not been a positive experience for either of them. If the opportunity availed itself, Carlisle resolved, he would investigate further. Compassion for his "firstborn" and his final daughter welled up in him. Edward looked wrought by internal fires. Bella's entire being was draped in apparent misery.

_Son? What is wrong?_

Edward met his eyes. No gold could be seen in the younger man's irises at present, however. Just a flat, dull black without life. Without hope. With a shake of his head and a glance at Bella, Edward took a deep breath as he and his wife stepped to the bottom of the stairs.

"We're getting a divorce," he stated with blunt pain. Then, he straightened his spine and waited for the fallout.

* * *

Questions asked and answered, Edward packed his car and said his goodbyes. All had been embraced, words of encouragement were exchanged.

_We'll keep her safe, son._

_Dude, you're sure?_ A nod.

"Watch out for her, all right? Make sure she has access to everything."

_She's our daughter, my sister, my best friend, of course._

"Bella, I'm —"

"Go..."

The Aston Martin's signature engine roared down the miles-long road to the main highway. Carlisle and Esme watched the dust roll up in the fading light of day. Hope for Edward warred with desolation at the wreckage of a marriage. With a blended sigh, the notional leaders of the coven returned indoors.

Jasper held his sister in his arms, the two of them being embraced by his mate and the rest of the family. Heartache cracked her shield, breaking over him like a wave of icy seawater.

"You knew," she accused him on a whisper that hurt him more than any release of ragged, coarse, hateful words could have done. "You knew."

"I'm so sorry."

Carlisle moved to kneel in front of her, his youngest daughter. "Sweetheart, it's not your fault."

At this, Bella had had _enough_. She exploded from them, her topaz eyes blazing as the others held only an empty space. "I'm still not good enough!"

Jasper doubled over in pain. Her pain and his own. "No, no, it's not like that," he rasped, wondering how a vampire could develop a hole in his chest. Alice crooned comfortingly to him, her fingers brushing his skin as he tried to find the strength to contain the ire and pain his sister threw at him. "You know it's not. You know what he said."

"He would always love me. _In a way_ ," she spat, her arms wrapping about her taut body, hair almost alive around her head and shoulders, vibrating with the suffering fury within her. "And that I would find _my_ true mate one day. He knew it."

Esme rushed to her, ignoring Bella's attempts to distance herself. "Sweetheart, he loved you."

There was nothing but the dry sobbing of a devastated immortal as the sun passed from the sky, leaving their home in darkness. Esme's final phrase, _He loved you,_ echoed with dismal reminders in the minds of each member of the family.

They all hated that, due to the discovery of his true mate, the verb was in the past tense.

Jasper didn't move, but sat with her on the floor. Alice collapsed at Bella's other side. He sent his mate little wafts of curiosity, wondering how long Bella would remain in this fetal ball on the carpet. Alice just frowned and shook her head.

Carlisle and Esme retreated to their room; he, to think and wonder how a mate bond could so supersede a love such as Edward had had for Isabella, she to mourn for her daughter, who was curled up on the first floor.

Rosalie and Emmett had taken themselves outside to walk in slow silences. Rosalie had never been close to Bella, but she felt all the injustice of the vampire existence in her sister's broken heart. Emmett just wanted to break something, to fix it and make it over, but he knew he couldn't do anything. And, damn it, Edward deserved to have a mate. Emmett stopped and drew his wife against his body, relishing their bond and thankful beyond belief that Jasper had confirmed it for them decades ago. Never would either be subject to the torment that had held Edward in a tight fist, or the sorrow that had shattered Bella.

Jasper did his best to let the pain wash through him without hurting. With a wry twist of his brow, he remembered the mantra from _Dune_ , by Frank Herbert. _Fear is the mind killer_ , was the teaching of the Bene Gesserit in that novel. The discipline was to let fear pass over and under and through so that when it was gone, the human remained unscathed.

Pain was the psyche-killer and Jasper did his best to let it pass through without consuming him as the night closed over them. Alice kept her arm twined with Bella's and Jasper encompassed both of them with his own strength. _I am going to bring her out of it by dawn_ , he decided privately. _Calm or shock or something. She cannot remain like this. It's not right._

Just before the first hints of the new day pushed through the heavy cloud cover overhead, Bella stirred and took her first breath in hours. "It's not right," she whispered. "He should be able to bring his mate back to the family. I'll go."

"No!" Alice insisted, almost before Bella had finished. "No, you won't!"

"Alice..." Bella moved slowly, almost human-speed, to sit and face her sister. Jasper reached for Alice's hand and Bella took the other and they just breathed for a moment. Until Alice gasped.

"Oh! Yes, you'll stay with us!"

Jasper felt the flaring of excitement that wove a cord with sisterly love and devotion in his mate's emotive signature. "What?"

Alice looked at him, her eyes wide as she pushed a wave of supplication to him. He could only nod — refusing her was almost impossible.

"Bella, it's time for us, for Jasper and me, to live apart, anyway. You'll come with us. We'll be family!" Expectation danced along her limbs and tiny fingers tightened in the clasps of both Empath and Shield.

"With you?" Bella repeated in confusion. "But you said you needed to live apart...?"

"From the family, Bella," Jasper said in support of his mate. "We do that, once in a while. You have too, eh?" At her nod and with a pulsation of joy from Alice, he continued. "So what the little dynamo here is suggesting is that you stay with us. You're family and we love you."

The truth was there in his voice and he purposefully smothered her in the love of the family he could feel in the house. Above them, Esme sighed, but Carlisle whispered that it was the best way to keep her close, letting her go for a time.

It took the entire family fully half a day to convince Bella that this would be the best thing. In the end, she agreed. Her new identity was tossed about, and Emmett had far too much fun pushing his name on her, against Rosalie's wishes. Esme wondered about her own surname for her youngest daughter, and Carlisle couldn't help but think that Edward would be devastated to know his soon-to-be-former-wife was remaking her life so quickly.

But they were vampires, and thought moved like light when decisions were finalized.

After a solo hunt, where she found a roving elk, Bella returned, with determination shooting from her in uneven wedges, Jasper felt. "So?" he asked.

Utter silence held sway for a few seconds. Then, Bella spoke. "Isabella Brandon it is."

* * *

**  
**


	3. To Let the Story End

 

"What, Alice?" Bella asked with a tired sigh. She held up her "little black dress" on its upholstered hanger and remembered wearing it to go dancing at a club in London. With Edward. Always, with Edward.

Alice wrapped slender arms about her and squeezed tightly. "I have had a vision."

Bella couldn't stop the helpless chuckle. "Oh, really?" They were still in Montana as Jasper made arrangements for them to move. The family's stint in Cornell several years ago had been brief and Bella hadn't been there, so it was to that vicinity that they would relocate. "Let me guess. I'm getting a new car?"

"No, a motorcycle actually, but that's neither here nor there." Alice came around to pluck the dress from Bella's fingers and hold her gaze. "I saw a vision of you being _happy_ , Bella."

"Do you remember how you found me, when Edward left and you thought I'd suicided?" The darkest memories of Bella's life had surfaced while she internalized her impending divorce. The paperwork was already being processed. The Cullens never waited to get what they wanted, not if they could help it. And heaven knew Edward wanted to be with his _mate_ , not the inconvenient _wife_ he used to love.

A cavernous emptiness roared within her and Bella closed her eyes and gave herself up to it. Happy? Did Alice really think that could ever be the case?

"I remember," her sister answered quietly, taking her hand and tugging until both of them were seated on the bed that Edward and Bella never quite _shared_. "But one of the components of your depression, you told me, was that we _all_ left you. Your family." She sighed and played with Bella's passive fingers. "We haven't, this time. We're here and we love you and we won't let you," she continued, wiggling Bella's hand until Bella met her eyes, "be alone this time. We're going to New York and we're going to have fun. You and me and Jasper."

"Maybe what you saw was just me having fun, Al," Bella rasped, closing her eyes. "Not really happy, but having fun, you know?"

"Possible, _Bell_. But having _fun_ beats jumping off a cliff."

Despite herself, Bella smiled a little and opened her eyes. "Actually, with the new and improved body? Cliff diving might be _fun_."

Encouraged by the smile, Alice egged her best friend along, suggesting wild and outlandish activities that might be fun to do. In her mind, she saw flashes of Bella cliff diving, of Jasper skydiving, of all of them trying white-water rafting in a remote place she did not recognize. Still, they were _laughing_. _Together_.

Caught up in these visions of possible futures, she didn't notice when Bella rolled off the bed and to her feet to continue packing. "Before we go anywhere, I have to go back to Forks. I have to say goodbye."

* * *

During the last two years of her humanity, Bella had done her level best to nurture her relationships with her parents. She had seen Charlie fall in love and remarry. She had watched Renée and Phil settle in as team-parents for a Florida high school where Phil got a job as a coach. Edward restyled his hair and adopted a pair of glasses, aging himself somewhat as "they" reached "their" twenties. Visits had been returned, and Bella felt satisfied that she had done her best to leave both her parents in good places, for when it was time for her to disappear from their lives.

It hurt, but she was relieved to have had the opportunity. Sometimes, she had shuddered to think what an immature girl she had been, to beg to leave them when she was only seventeen years of age. Twenty-one was not that old, she had reflected, but she had matured more than the average young woman in the intervening years.

So, when the time came and she and Edward were "killed" by a drunk driver, Bella knew her parents would mourn, yes, but she knew they were in healthy relationships that would nurture them through the dark time they would have to go through.

She never counted on Charlie being killed on duty. It had happened shortly after her change, while she was still adjusting to humans. She had not been able to see his memorial service, even from a distance. None of the Cullens had been able to attend, due to the fact that they should have been aging, and yet they hadn't been.

* * *

"We'll go," Alice murmured as Jasper projected a wave of reassurance in Bella's general direction.

Carlisle's phone rang then, and the house hushed as the ringtone was recognized to be Edward's. Alice's eyes flashed to Bella just in time to see her sister run from the room. There was a soft sound as Bella effortlessly leapt over the banister to the hardwood floor, followed by the quiet turn and subsequent latching of the front door.

Jasper met Alice on the landing, his hand extended. "Do we follow?"

"No, let her be. She's not running from us, but from him."

Jasper bowed his head to Alice's, his honey-hued waves of hair accenting her inky black ones. "Carlisle's been feeling guilty about this. He hopes Edward isn't dismayed by Bella's decision."

Alice bristled. "Bella's decision? She's just doing the best thing she can! She's going to be happy! So is Edward," she added. "Eventually."

"Hopeful wishes or true vision, Sprite?"

"Both," she mumbled into his chest as he pulled her into an embrace. "But we'll be good for her, Jas. We will."

Carlisle emerged, an apology poised on his lips, after his call with Edward. "He's connected with Alistair and Bronwyn again. He'll be staying with them for the time being. Alistair is punishing himself, apparently, for creating a newborn by making sure he oversees her training." Carlisle smiled a little, thinking of his old friend in such a role. "Edward also wanted to know how Bella is." Alice and Jasper had purposefully not listened in on the phone conversation, so they waited for Carlisle to continue. Standing outside his office door, he had a line-of-sight connection with the Whitlocks, so he leaned back against the wall and crossed his ankles before continuing. "He was relieved to know she was still here, surrounded by family." Alice and Jasper nodded in tandem and Carlisle went on. "He was worried she'd withdraw into herself again."

Jasper snorted softly. She had done exactly that for a period of several hours. Even now, he felt a dark miasma pulse out from her chest on occasion. She reeled it back in, somehow enfolding it to contain the emotion within herself. She was extraordinarily self-controlled these days. "Alice says she'll be happy, Bella will. Edward can enjoy his mate." Resentment etched tiny lines in Jasper's emotional sail, though. He wondered where his brother got off worrying about his wife when he was the one who put her in that place. Sure, it wasn't really his fault, but —

Had anyone really tried to resist a mate bond before? How could they be manipulated? He put the questions away for another time and, after a period of silence, took his own mate by the hand and led her to their room.

"Alice..." he whispered, lifting his petite ballerina of a wife up to nuzzle her throat, "I need you." Jasper felt a nearly instinctive desire to reaffirm their bond, to be reminded of how wonderful it felt to be mated, to love and be loved, to immerse himself in the emotive outpourings of his wife. "Right now," he added, his voice low and growly.

He felt the way Alice put her worries aside and brought her love for him to the forefront of her awareness. Her eyes darkened as she slid her legs around his waist. "You have me. Right now."

Pressing herself to her man, Alice felt his need meet her own and their purrs echoed even in the corridor outside their suite. She knew when Bella would be returning, but her first priority was her mate. Bella had lived with vampires having wild sex before and she would again. So when their sister returned from her impromptu hunt, Alice set her mind against responding to anything that wasn't in the room with her and Jasper.

For his part, Jasper felt the brief spike of pain and regret and winced internally, but Alice's scent beckoned and he could only follow the pleasure given and received until they reached their own private heaven.

* * *

Bella was sifting through the mail on the small dining table. It was a constant in Cullen life, she imagined: having a dining table. Even though they never used it for dining. There was paperwork for Jasper as he undertook life as a lowly associate professor at Cornell in their U.S. History Department. A series of civic documents and utility notices for Alice as she set up her Pixie Party Planners business. And a class schedule for one _Isabella Brandon_ as she entered the Master of Arts - Teaching program at Cornell.

Her mind rebelled at the alias. Part of her still answered to Isabella _Swan_. Bella _Cullen_ was her heart's identity. Marie _Masen_ had been a necessary subterfuge — melancholy but also pleasant as with it, she had accomplished her goal. But not _Isabella Brandon_.

"What's wrong there, Bella?" Jasper felt the roiling tension, resentment and subdued despair as he had approached the house. Sitting on ten acres of land in Trumansburg, New York, the house was less than half an hour from Cornell University and quite isolated, making it ideal. Stunning price, too, at less than a quarter-million dollars. "Bad news from the graduate program?" he teased. Her paperwork was all in order and she hadn't required financial aid, so the university loved her. Going in as a grad student insured that she would not have to do any fancy footwork to get out of living on campus for a year. Graduate students were expected to be older and independent.

She lifted her gaze to him briefly, her fingers scattering the mail on the dark, round table. "This just isn't what I had imagined, you know?"

Understanding, compassion, and a certain amount of determination came through Jasper's voice as he stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her head. She was taller than Alice, making that slightly less awkward. "I know. When I found Alice, I thought we were going to have an entirely different life, too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He stared out the French doors that led to an expansive lawn — still green, though the trees beyond it were changing colors with the cooler autumn weather. "We, er, got acquainted in Philadelphia and then we had to leave right quick," he told her, his accent becoming more comprehensive as he spoke of his past.

"How did you know?" she asked, motionless.

"Know what?"

"Know that Alice was your mate? Edward said you said we weren't —"

Jasper knew that, forgiving as Bella was, she might be harboring some deep pain over what could be perceived as a betrayal of sorts. "No, you weren't. And I am sorry. I knew it but didn't say anything because, sugar, you two were a balm to my spirit, you know? Like, like a comfortable pair of warm jeans on a cold day. Bein' around you was soothing. Because you loved one another." He felt her shoulders shake and she tried to move away, but he held on to her, pushing off small, drifting waves of calming comfort. It was his fault, to a degree, that she was experiencing this now, so he did what he could to ease her while they talked. From upstairs, he could feel Alice's encouragement as she purposefully made small noises that sounded like she was setting up an in-home office. "Love is a gift."

"You're _not_ distracting me," Isabella insisted, her own flare of determination nearly tangible. "What is a mate bond? How do you recognize it?"

"Me? I can feel it."

"How did — How did _he_ know?"

Jasper sighed as Bella moved out of his light embrace to confront him. Touch made it easier to share his gift. It was more subtle that way. Still, he focused on the soothing tranquility as he explained. "A mate is a rare bond. It's unmistakable, however, and only requires one touch of skin. It's a permanent thing, for a vampire," he went on, his voice still low, purposefully endeavoring to keep this a calm discussion. Beneath Bella's current cool exterior, that resentment and anger still thrashed.

It made perfect sense, but Jasper wasn't at all sure he wanted to be on the receiving end of her fury. He had seen the mess she'd made of a copse of trees not too long ago. "Skin on skin?" she asked.

"I am not sure why we have a tangible thing, as vampires. Maybe it's because we have to live with our mates for an eternity and that kind of security is a good thing to have."

"Hey!" Alice protested above.

Exchanging a look with Bella, Jasper chuckled. "See? But it's a feeling. Kind of a warm buzzing. When I met Alice that first time, all the jagged edges inside of me felt as if they settled into their proper places. For Edward, from what I gathered, it was a burst of warmth. For Alice, it was a sense of safety. It's different, but the same."

"But it's not love."

Not being human, Jasper's limbs didn't need to fidget, but he felt he had to, anyway. He pulled out one of the chairs from the table and sat gingerly upon it, leaning his elbows on his knees. "No. It's not. But it gets that way pretty damned fast."

Bella's face tightened, her fists clenched as she threw her head back. Jasper braced himself, not knowing what might happen. He had gleaned from Carlisle, before they left Montana, that Bella had inadvertently found a way to push out her personal shield, so that Edward had been able to hear her thoughts.

But no, nothing different hit Jasper and he relaxed.

"All right."

"Bella." Jasper opened his mouth, closed it. Tried again. "Isabella, it's not fair. I know that. I know you're hurting. I know you will be for a while. And that's all right, okay?" An arc of sheer, slicing mourning reached him and he winced visibly. "Yeah. You're not alone, okay?" A breath of wind seemed to move through their two-story colonial and Alice was at Bella's side. "See? We love you."

"I know."

Jasper met Alice's pained eyes. They both hurt for their little sister, but there wasn't a thing they could really do, gifted as they were. Time was the only thing that would help. Time and occupation. Alice held out her hand to him and he joined them.

"Do you want me to make it feel better for a bit, Little Sister?"

Bella paused, her head touching Alice's as they all stood with their arms about one another. "No. No, I need to get through this. I'll let you know, okay?"

"All right."

Having no other obligations that evening, the three vampires stood motionless as the sun set. Bella being comforted and Alice and Jasper taking some satisfaction at being able to be there for her the second time Edward broke her heart.

[ ](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8oKi-51QwDhCgvVS2s6MyO6d0Kqf-LxG0snAQNH3u3w?feat=embedwebsite)

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	4. A Law That I Live By

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* * *

**Chapter 4: A Law That I Live By**

"Happy New Year!" Alice called into the frosty night. Bella shook her head, bemused. Sometimes, she still expected to see things like plumes of breath coming from vampires in the winter. Silly, but true. "Welcome, 2017."

Jasper rolled up snow in both his hands. "May it be a damned sight better than 2016!"

They both looked expectantly at Bella. Finding a smile from somewhere, she put it on. "Here's to a beautiful holiday with my dearest friends." Gratitude washed over her and her smile grew more genuine. She was about to say something else when a snowball hit her square in the chest. "Hey!"

Ten acres meant a lot of private snow, and the three of them — egged on by Major Jasper Whitlock — commenced a snow war of epic proportions in the earliest hours of the year. Bella knew her new and improved vampire brain couldn't really forget anything, but for a few hours she was able to banish the worry and hurt and just have fun. Each of the three of them moved at their fastest speeds to construct snow forts, gathering dead, black branches to use as supports if necessary. Balls of snow in varying sizes were amassed in the star-spangled darkness as the sheet of white that comprised most of their backyard was wrought with furrows and piles and sometimes denuded to the wet, bare earth.

"Oh, come on, war hero!" Bella shouted through a window in her fort. "Don't go being all superior! Let us get a few licks in, too!"

"You really shouldn't have said that," Alice shouted with a laugh.

Jasper buzzed around the wall of his fort, but Bella was ready for him, her arms filled with two enormous balls of packed white snow. When he started lobbing smaller missiles at her, she ignored them and waited. Just waited. Then, when he drew nearer, she leapt high into the air and pushed the snow-boulders down at him.

"Score!"

"I didn't even _feel_ you!" he protested, brushing snow out of his hair with lightning-fast fingers. "How the hell did you manage that?"

Appearing transported with joy, Alice flew across the roughened ground to them, her smile wide as could be. "How fun! Told you we'd have fun, Bella," she added as she got the rest of the snow off her mate. She flashed a quick smile and a wink. "Let's get him!"

Surprised but delighted, Bella joined Alice in all but burying Jasper underneath what remained of their snow forts. He griped and yelled and swore, but the women could feel his bone-deep amusement and enjoyment of the uneven conclusion to their night's battle. He pounded his way out when they told him he had lost and emerged shaking his head wildly to clear it of the impacted snow.

"All right. That worked up an appetite. Who's up for a hunt?"

Their body temperatures tended to draw heat from the air and surrounding materials, so the snow only added to the stony coolness in their skin. Merely brushing off the snow kept their clothes from becoming uncomfortably damp. Bella was definitely ready for a hunt and was relieved that a change in wardrobe would not be necessary; the playful mood now surrounding Alice and Jasper would likely lead them directly to bed. _Do not pass GO. Do not collect a mule deer._

Much as she loved them, being around avid vampire lovemaking while she was alone and still hurting was painful.

"I am. Let's go!" she said a moment after Jasper's challenge. Without further thought, she took off at her top speed toward the northeast where deer could be found. They had to be careful, here in the snowy northern regions, because too much hunting would cut into the spring breeding of any game and create concerns with all sorts of animal populations. Above all, conserving the resources was paramount.

Her mind wandered as she ran, though. Had Edward taught his — taught Bronwyn how to hunt animals? Was he hunting alone as the new year began or did she go with him? What about Alistair? How much more time was left before the newborn would leave her sire and return with Edward to his family?

And would she, Bella, ever want to be in the same vicinity as the two of them? Could she bear it?

Jasper's running tread drew up beside her, pulling her conscious thoughts away from such melancholy contemplations. "Come on. I'm pulling rank. Whatever you're thinking about that's dragging you under, stop it. Let's hunt and enjoy ourselves until the sun comes up, all right? Can you do that?"

Still running, still noting the tree trunks as they passed, Bella nodded her acceptance. "Sorry. Didn't mean to bring you down with me."

"No apologies needed, sugar. Just making sure you practice pretending, is all." His lifted brow as he fell back reminded her that pretending was their way of life and she needed to keep at it.

Alice joined her next tugging her hand and saying, "Come on! We'll find a fairly decent herd up through those trees."

The soft whispers of their feet on virgin woodland snow blended with the inhalations they each took as they scented their prey and the sudden movements of startled animals. A quiet flurry of sound ensued as Bella targeted a buck.

He saw the predator and leapt into the air. Less gracefully, with less speed than he might have shown months prior, the buck did his best to get away from her, but hunger burned in her throat, venom spurting into her mouth as she ran and jumped and broke the creature's back. With the accuracy of years of practice, she stretched and bit into the buck's throat, feeling the relief that came with the gushing of blood.

She was a natural at it, Edward had said.

Finishing her deer, she sighed, made herself pretend not to be wallowing in memories, and did her best to obliterate the carcass. "Some animals need the meat," she had mentioned to the family years ago. "Why not leave it out for them?"

Emmett had laughed. "Bells. That's a lot of meat."

But with just Jasper and Alice? Not nearly so much meat. She scattered the remains of her meal in a large radius so that other creatures might benefit from her feeding, too.

Alice found her just as she had finished burying the head of the buck. "Look! There's a pond frozen over. We should go skating!"

Laughing, Bella asked, "What, is it family fun night?"

"Yes!"

Jasper tracked them down by the sound of their musical laughter not much later. He enjoyed himself by pushing waves of giddiness at the women, alternating with embarrassment, happiness, bliss and calm. "You're looking quite lovely," he called out to them. They did. The night was cold enough that even the clouds had vanished, and the stars of the earliest morning hours were bright and sharp overhead. Naked bones of some trees mingled with evergreens around the smallish impromptu ice rink and Alice and Bella slid and balanced on one foot at a time over the unblemished surface.

Alice moved like a dancer, her body bending and spinning as a practiced performer. Bella laughed as long as she remained upright and managed to trace basic shapes with her feet.

Curiosity reached Jasper, coming from the west. Not wanting to alarm the females nor wishing to push down Bella's obvious efforts at "having fun," he tracked the emotive outpourings of what he believed to be a male. Hunger was next, which amused Jasper as he understood that the coming stranger was a vampire and clearly thought that the girls were humans.

Then, Jasper felt chagrin before a renewed pulsing of curiosity, edged with the layered feelings of sexual desire.

 _Time to nip that right in the bud_. He turned to put himself between the girls and the west, narrowing down the point of approach of the newcomer by the origin of the other vampire's emotions. He also rolled up his sleeves and made sure the stars lit his skin, so that his scars were visible. It was as good as a weapon, when meeting an unknown male.

"Hey," he said softly, stepping to intercept.

The newcomer appeared then, around a nearly black tree trunk. "Hello." Caution now overwhelmed his other emotions and Jasper nodded to himself. "Is this your territory? I don't remember seeing you here before."

"No. Just out celebrating the new year," Jasper answered. "Have we trespassed?"

The male came alone, his burgundy eyes gleaming dully. "No." The eyes studied Jasper's exposed skin and the newcomer stopped abruptly, his body coming to an instinctive crouch. "Look. I don't want any trouble but — Your eyes? That's a crazy color, man."

"I feed from animals. So do they," Jasper said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "We don't want any trouble, either."

The male relaxed. "Fine, then. I'm Randall."

"Jasper." There was no handshaking. The empath wasn't the least surprised by that.

Lust spiked from Randall and Jasper watched as the nomad studied the women, who were still playing on the ice. "So...you're with them?"

"Yep."

Randall grinned. "Lucky guy."

No threat emanated from the newcomer and, after a few moments spent studying and feeling nothing more than a general appreciation of the female form and curiosity, Jasper decided to give the other vampire a break. "The little one's my mate. The other one's our sister. Alice? Bella?"

Making sure he was close enough to rip Randall's red-gold head off his shoulders at the first indication of inappropriate feelings, Jasper strode to meet the girls.

* * *

"So, classes start tomorrow for you? I still don't know why you bother."

Bella smiled at the snowman Randall was creating with new snow near the treeline. "I want to learn. And having a purpose, schedules, stuff like that? It helps to keep the days in order." She grinned. "I can't fathom how a nomad manages without a calendar."

As all of their kind, Randall was an aesthetically pleasing figure. About six feet tall, his hair was a bright reddish blond that glinted richly in the winter sun. Broad shoulders and large hands had proven apt at building and snow-sculpting as well as fighting. They had staged another snow battle two days after meeting him. Randall had been on her side.

It was clear he was testing out how long he might remain there. Bella didn't know how she felt about that, but he was good company and did provide a certain distraction...

"Well, if you ever want to try running free, let me know," he said. "You might like it. It's kinda liberating." Now, his smile was flirtatious as he rolled a final mound of snow into a head for the snowman.

She stepped a bit closer. "It does sound tempting," she mused. And it did. Not having to pretend to be happy for an empathic warrior with a protectiveness streak a mile wide. Not having to listen to enthusiastic sex between mated vampires at all hours. Being able to just run. Without limits. Without expectations. "What do you do for fun, out there in the big, wide world?"

Randall paused a moment, staring at the three-tiered snowman he had made. "Anything you want," he responded, his voice husky. "Look," he said with a new, bracing tone, "the fighter?"

"Jasper?"

"Yeah. He said I had to be real careful with you. But you seem to be a pretty feisty girl, you know?"

She had to laugh. "Been a while since someone called me that, but okay. And?"

He cocked his head and brushed a lock of hair from his eye. "And I can be careful. I just can't be caged in."

She gestured toward the white house with the two brick chimneys and stone pavers outside. "Kind of a nice cage, though."

He inhaled deeply and looked up. Sunlight brought the rainbows to his cheekbones. "It is, Bella. It is. I just wouldn't want to make it permanent, you know?"

"Hard to hunt if you did," she guessed.

With a laugh, he agreed and extended his hand. "So... Wanna come run for a while?"

The invitation took her by frank surprise so that she actually gasped and stared at their joined hands. His bare palm slid against hers and she knew that there was no mate bond with Randall. She hadn't wanted there to be one, but a sudden decision seemed to fly across her consciousness:

_Do I want to go through that kind of heartache ever again? Can I be with a man without knowing he's my mate? Will love ever be enough?_

_I can't. I can't do it. I can't even consider it. No._

She shook her head and lightly withdrew her hand from Randall's clasp. "I might want to run, but I would want to run back here, too."

With a rueful smile, Randall slowly brushed a section of hair back from her shoulder. "I figured on that. But can't blame a guy for tryin', huh?"

"It's very sweet of you."

"Sweet, huh?" he asked, managing to look mischievous and shy at the same time. "Been a while since I've heard that." They shared a laugh before he took a long, slow breath. "So. If I come back sometime to see you, will you think about maybe, oh, taking a vacation with me? At least trying it out there?"

"I might," she temporized, not wanting to refuse him outright and knowing that it might be years before he came back. Years in which she might find a reason to change her mind.

He nodded briskly. "All right then. I think, on that optimistic note," he went on with a wink, "I'll be on my way. Nothing personal," he assured her, "but I'm thirsty."

His eyes had grown dark in the days he had been with them and Bella knew how the fire burned at such times. When he offered her a one-armed embrace and brushed his lips across her forehead, she didn't protest.

It was kind of nice, feeling wanted.

When he had run out of sight, carrying nothing more than the clothes on his back, she let her hands run lightly over the snowman he had made for her. No, she didn't regret not going.

With a lighter step than with which she had left it, Bella returned to the house, where Jasper and Alice waited. Her best friend and sister pounced on her. "Oh! You smell like Randall," she teased, eyes twinkling.

From his spot on the dark leather sofa, Jasper offered her a half-smile. "He was really hopin' you'd say yes, you know. But even when he asked, I could feel he wasn't really certain."

"It was a fair offer," Bella told them. "Tempting, too."

Alice and Jasper both shook their heads at her. "Do me a favor," her Big Brother the Warrior said. "Let me teach you how to fight before you decide to take a nomad up on his offer of life on the road, okay? You're a grown woman and I won't stop you from going."

"Jasper!" Alice gasped.

"No, I won't. And neither should you. Both of us have known the nomadic life, sweetheart. We know how it is in a family, too. Bella has a long eternity ahead of her and freedom to find what she wants. We should let her."

Alice wrapped her arms around Bella's waist and the women hugged lightly. Bella contemplated her future and wondered if the life of a nomad in search of a mate was an option. "It's a good idea, Jasper. Thanks. I'd like that."

* * *

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	5. My "Why Not Me?" Philosophy

 

**Chapter 5: My "Why Not Me?" Philosophy**

"Hey, Dr. Whitlock? You busy?"

Jasper laughed lightly. "No, Ms. Brandon. C'mon in. Have a seat." His office mate, another associate professor, nodded without speaking as Bella slipped through the door and settled herself in the swivel chair next to Jasper's desk. "Thinking of auditing one of my classes in the Spring, 2018 Term before you finish out your Masters?" It was as good a reason as any for her to be here, though their "in-law" status worked, too.

"No, actually. I just thought I'd see if you and my sister wanted to go out for dinner tonight." With a small smile, she glanced at the office mate. "My turn to cook."

Dr. Seko smiled shyly. Jasper felt how overwhelmed he was by the beauty of the female vampire in the office. He felt a pricking of irritation at that, as well as a wash of amusement.

Sometimes, being an empath was downright confusing.

"Dinner, yes," he said aloud, letting Seko get back to work. "Sure, I'm sure Alice would love to get away from the party business and go out." He laughed when Bella's emotions flared in embarrassment. "Seriously," he said more softly. "It's a good idea."

Spring was a time when the animals who had hibernated in the winter would be coming out to play. And hunt and forage and bring on new little ones to replenish the supply for the predators that preyed upon them. Jasper knew that he and the small group they called a family were among those predators. Tonight, they would range north and east, looking for bigger game, perhaps, than they had endeavored to content themselves with over the winter. They had the whole weekend and Canada was not out of the question. In the year and a half that they had lived in Trumansburg, they hadn't been to Canada all that often, but this weekend was a good time. Rainy weather predicted, Alice-affirmed, and a side-trip to a waterfall would be most appreciated.

Well, by himself and his mate. Maybe not so much by Bella.

He finished his grading while Bella read a textbook and took notes on her laptop. Jasper adjusted himself to feeling irritated that Seko couldn't seem to keep his eyes off of Bella in her biking leathers. He figured it was Big Brother Warrior instincts coming into play.

"Do you know," he murmured to Bella as they left at human speeds to walk to the parking lot where they had both left their vehicles that day, "I realized something this afternoon."

"What?" she asked, an eye on the sky just in case a shaft of sunlight broke through the cloudy canopy. "You'd rather eat in?"

He smiled at her silliness, but shook his head. "Nope. I've realized I've been feeling all territorial lately. Which was bothering me," he admitted to her.

"How so?" she frowned up at him as they reached her Ducati cycle. "Was it that nomad?"

He ruffled her hair a little as she tucked her computer away and slid her keys from her bag. "No. Maybe it's the training sessions you, Alice and I have had. Or maybe it's just feeling like I'm — I'm in a coven, again. You know?"

Understanding widened her eyes as his voice dropped. "Like a patriarch, sort of. Coven-leader. Head of house? That kind of thing?" Suddenly, she swung herself over her bike and grinned playfully. "Does that mean I should be calling you _Dad_ , now?"

Laughing, he smacked her lightly on the arm. "Get out of here, girl. I'll see you and Alice at home."

"Yes, _Dad_!"

Bella loved the freedom of the motorcycle between her legs.

Breezing up the highway to their piece of geography, she sometimes compared her life to the one she would have had had she and Edward never gone to visit Alistair. The older vampire had never shaken hands with her or with Edward, preferring to keep his distance during their entire time together — all of eleven minutes, maybe — so really, he would not have impacted their existence in any way.

Except that he sired Bronwyn. Bella managed not to wince when imagining Edward and his mate together.

Instead, she focused on the present. The liberty she had to ride a motorcycle without having Edward worrying about her indestructible body getting hurt. She could and did wear clothes she chose, with Alice's input on new pieces that would compliment her height and serve her instead of being a slave to a wardrobe she didn't choose. Bella enjoyed being confident in this way, as well as in her own personal defense. It wasn't that being indestructible, Jasper and Alice had both told her, would keep her safe.

Edward never would have wanted her to have to get trained the way Jasper trained. The man was _that close_ to brutal as he taught her how to take apart any vampire who dared to try to hurt her in any way. Alice was her usual sparring partner, but the woman could be merciless in her own way.

Remembering made Bella grin as she neared the turn-off to their home.

 _Their home._ Were they still Cullens, really? Well, yes. But they were also Whitlocks, inasmuch as Jasper really did kind of manage their structure and see to their overall well-being. And as wonderful as Edward was, and as much as they had a terrific relationship and fulfilling marriage, he was always a family-man. Even when they lived away from the Cullens for a while, they felt like children who were on their own for a time.

With Alice and Jasper, Bella didn't really feel that way. She felt like an independent adult, making her way in the world... Even if she did live on a huge piece of property and wasn't actually bringing in income. She would. She had needed time to heal, to learn, to grow. Jasper and Alice had given that to her. Soon, she'd be finished with this degree and able to have a regular job and contribute to the family.

It did seem strange, though, to think of being a part of the Whitlock family.

Head under a helmet, hands in gloves, she didn't give a thought to the sunshine as it revealed itself with the passing of clouds. Spring was a time for sun, and she was giving consideration to taking at least a few night courses for her final term in the degree program. Her mind was all on applying the Masters degree to writing textbooks for future students when she turned and saw a long, black sedan pulled up on the gravel near the house.

She didn't recognize the car, but at first thought it was Carlisle's. Leaving her riding gloves on, she took off her helmet and tucked it under her arm absently while using her nose to figure out who was there.

It wasn't Carlisle, but someone was walking around. Inside her house. A _vampire_ someone, by the scent.

Panic hit her and she froze. _Assess the situation_ , Jasper had instructed her over a year ago. _If someone isn't being torn apart, you can do more harm than good by just overreacting._

Wasn't _that_ the truth?

Assessing. Two scents. One set of feet moving inside. That meant one unaccounted-for other.

 _Call for back-up._ That was her first thought. Jasper was on his way, so she'd call him. And then Alice. Just as she moved to do so, her eyes on the windows of the house, her phone vibrated in her bag. She ripped off her gloves and answered it, ignorant about whom was on the other end, still watching the house.

"Hello?" she whispered. Hoping that the low volume combined with some distance would keep anyone inside from hearing her. Heat was coming through her black leather coat now and the warmth made her edgy for some reason.

Alice's voice was strained when she spoke. "Bella. Are you home?"

"Yeah. Just pulled up."

"I saw two men at our house! You don't remember them, maybe, but we met them in Volterra. Felix and Demetri. Felix is the big one."

"Haven't seen either. What do I do, Alice? What do they want?"

"I'm on my way. Jasper will be there in about a minute." Bella decided to wait outside and Alice caught her breath. "Good. You do that."

Bella thought most of all that she had to keep the family safe. She had no idea of what was happening, did not remember ever going to Italy — though she knew she had, she had no recollection of events, there. Edward had maintained that that was just as well, since she had been traumatized. Alice had been with them, though, so Bella felt somewhat reassured that _someone_ knew the people inside.

So she had assessed the situation, called for back-up, and would wait. With a nod, she remained poised to flee, just as two things happened. Jasper's classic Mustang pulled up behind her and the side door to the house opened to reveal a slim man who eyed her with far too much familiarity to be comfortable.

"Jasper," she whispered as he closed the door on his car. She held out one hand to him since she couldn't seem to look away from the man in the door.

"Right here, sugar. Now, I'm going to calm you down some, okay? So we keep our heads, here." She waited, hoping for relief from the nearly bone-splitting tension in her body, but it never came. Jasper made an irritated, impatient sound, but stepped in front of her, still holding her hand. "Never mind. Hello!" he called.

"Jasper Whitlock, yes? Leader of this branch of the Cullens?"

Bella felt the flaring projection of Jasper's quick humor before he tamped it down and assumed a slightly more protective stance. "Yes. You are?"

"Demetri with the Volturi Guard. You have no near neighbors, I ascertain?" The sun light _did_ hit Jasper's diamond-quartz skin, so the question seemed reasonable. "I am here with Felix, also of the Guard. And behind you is Isabella?"

Bella opened her mouth to answer but Jasper spoke too quickly for her. "She is known as Bella Brandon, here."

Demetri smiled in a patronizing manner and knocked one finger against the house. Bella heard the undisguised sound of a large vampire in an obvious hurry. It struck her as slightly amusing, even though Jasper was still in Warrior Protector mode.

The door opened again and Bella was unable to refrain from gasping at the sheer size of the man who had to actually hunch over a bit to make it through the door. His eyes met hers first as he nodded before he directed his attention to Jasper. "Hello. We are sent by Aro di Volterra to assure him that Isabella Swan was indeed either one of us or dead."

Jasper's clasp tightened on her hand and he swore about Alice under his breath. "This is Isabella. She's one of us." After ascertaining the mood of their visitors, Jasper moved slightly and tugged Bella to stand just a bit in front of him. He felt their interest, curiosity, determination and from one, sexual attraction. From the other, irritated confusion.

Growing rather irritated himself, Jasper only barely managed not to growl. He felt intruded upon. "Intriguing," Demetri observed, stepping nearer and sliding black leather gloves from his hands. The light bounced off his skin as he extended his hand to Bella. "May I?"

"May you what?" Bella snapped, her body tense. Jasper still had her hand in his, the easier to move her if the situation deteriorated.

"Take your hand."

Slowly, she offered it and he brought it to his nose, oddly enough. "Yes, that is your scent within. You have your things in the smaller bedroom with the blue curtains." Jasper rolled his eyes. Demetri continued. "No, I can't sense you. I will inform Lord Aro."

"What?"

Felix chose that moment to join the conversation. Jasper's tension renewed itself to feel that this was the vampire who was attracted to Bella. "When you visited us in Volterra as a human, Isabella, Aro di Volterra could not hear your thoughts. Edward Cullen could not, either. Is that still the case?"

"No, he can't," Bella said quickly, shooting a _Don't even speak for me_ look up at Jasper.

"Look, she's clearly a vampire," Jasper asserted. "Are we done?" Then, a familiar Porsche engine rumbled not too far away and he swore, more loudly this time. "Damn it, woman. You just couldn't give us another few minutes?"

"Who is that?" Demetri wondered, pointing with his chin at the yellow car as it came up the drive.

"My mate," Jasper shot back, letting his protective nature growl out fully. The visitors would understand.

Felix's smile practically exploded on his face. When it did, Jasper could feel the sexual interest spike in Bella, too. He wanted to laugh a little. _Wouldn't that beat all, having Bella find out that her mate was a member of the Volturi?_

"So Isabella is not yours, then? Where is Edward Cullen?" Felix asked Bella.

Jasper put a comforting arm around her as Alice barreled out of her car to do likewise. She had seen this coming but was a bit late to the show. "Edward found his true mate," Alice stated. "He went to her, of course."

Felix's countenance fell; Jasper felt a sympathy emanating from the large fellow. Perhaps something similar had happened to Felix? "I am sorry to hear that. I know he loved you very much. It was clear when you were human."

Bella inhaled deeply and met his dark burgundy gaze. "Thank you. Yes, we were very much in love. And now, I am here with Jasper and Alice and we are making a new life for ourselves," she added with a toss of her head. Her hair swirled beguilingly over her shoulders.

Jasper felt Felix's surge of interest peak again and decided it was time for them to leave. "If you're quite satisfied as to Bella's state of being...?"

Demetri nodded and removed a cell phone from a pocket of his dark jacket. "Of course. I'll just phone Lord Aro..."

"Wait," Felix said, his eyes fixed on Bella's face. "I'd like to stay. For a visit."

Bella held his gaze, unblinking. "That might be...nice." She glanced up at Jasper, who was still holding her for comfort. With a slight shift of her torso, he released her, but she concentrated hard and meant to silently ask him, _Please?_ as she knew Alice did sometimes.

Annoyed at not being able to say _no_ to her — He and Alice wanted Bella to heal and move on, didn't they? — Jasper nodded.

Within minutes, Demetri and Felix had a conference, Jasper and Alice had one likewise, and Bella hurried inside, her mind splintered in wondering if she might have remembered anything about Felix from before, to wondering if there was something wrong with her to be attracted in any way whatsoever to someone she didn't really know.

She resolved not to be alone with him until talking _very_ privately with Alice.

* * *

They were alone in the living room. And she hadn't talked to Alice.

Felix sat on the floor, looking far less forbidding with his long, powerful legs stretched in front of him as he leaned back on his elbows. "I will be honest and tell you that the transformation only refined the beauty you possessed as a human," Felix said as if sharing a great secret.

"Then I'll be honest, too," Bella countered, "and tell you that I can't remember meeting you, but I'm not sorry for it. I would have been frightened of you and now — I'm not."

A wave of unadulterated lust washed over the pair of them from the second floor, and Bella felt it deep within her, knowing it was due to Jasper losing it for a few moments. Felix's arousal was obvious, and by the way he inhaled, as if appreciating a fine wine, she knew hers was as well. And only part of it, she believed, was due to Jasper.

"How do you manage this?" Felix whispered, his eyes heavily lidded.

"Well, when we all lived together," Bella whispered back, hoping the Whitlocks were too preoccupied to listen, "when they, ah, were together? We _all_ got together."

"And now?" he asked, his voice deepening as he rolled up a little to wrap his arms about his knees.

"Now? I tend to go out. Running or hunting."

Felix was on his feet in a moment. "Shall we?"

Not at all reluctant, Bella agreed and led the way through the side door and into the late afternoon. The sunlight lent beauty to his strength as she studied him from the corner of her eye. He still wore his gloves and she did not comment upon that. "All right," she said to break what now felt like an awkward silence, "how tall are you?"

He laughed and she really liked the sound of it. "Two meters three."

"Pardon?"

"Two meters and three centimeters," he said in clarification. "I think that's six-foot-eight for you?" As she stopped in her steps to stare at him again — he was the tallest man she had ever seen — he drew near enough to almost touch her. "See something interesting, Isabella?"

"Could be, Felix." Part of her busy vampiric brain was arguing: _Why not flirt? Why not? Even if it was just for practice?_

The other part was countering with: _Edward hadn't needed to flirt to find his mate... He said I'd find mine. Vampires find mates and it's obvious and physical and then they go at it like Alice and Jasper._

_I miss going at it like Alice and Jasper._

_Enough!_

As if sensing her conflict, Felix stepped away and indicated the treeline with a sweep of his arm. "I am not used to being out in the sunlight. It is a welcome pleasure for me."

"Then let's not waste it!"

As they walked, they talked. He told her of his life in Volterra and how many centuries he had been with the Guard and where and why he had learned to speak English almost without an accent. She told him of college life in America and why she fed from animals.

"We were planning a run to Canada this weekend," she informed him. "That is, _if_ they remember..." She smiled with a wry curve to her lips.

"Following the wishes of the leader of your coven — there is something we have in common," the Guardsman offered, his demeanor returning to that half-flirtatious feel. "If you are comfortable in this environment, and with the Cullens, you might like Volterra."

The idea struck her with a cold slap, so that she shook her head immediately. "I don't think so."

"But Isabella," he said, turning and catching at her hand without pressure. "You might have a gift, you know. Something that kept out Master Aro. Something that kept out Edward. Have you ever felt it?"

His expression encouraged her. His wish to sit in the sunlight struck a chord in her that was exciting and a bit thrilling, so she sat, still holding his hand, as the sun set. With barely a thought of reluctance, she shared with him what had happened when Edward told her of Bronwyn and how she had somehow managed to push away whatever kept her mind hidden so that Edward heard her thoughts.

"And," she confided, "I think I'm learning to do that with Jasper, too."

His eyes smoldered and she wondered, briefly, if gifted vampires turned him on. He reached one hand quite slowly toward her, as if afraid whatever it was that shielded her would turn him away. It didn't and his gloved finger traced her jawline. It was nice, so she pressed his hand to her cheek and held it there, tracing the leather-covered lines of his hand with hers.

"Ah," he murmured, his head dropping closer to hers, "you could learn how to make your shield more effective. Stronger."

"I could," she said, just for something to say as she debated what to do. Kiss him? She'd have her bubble burst then, for sure. But it had been a long time and she really wanted to somehow, and...

"Come with me."

His invitation brushed her lips just before he did himself. With tenderness, his mouth covered hers, dancing in a careful introduction. No fizzling under her skin, no warmth, but she felt a subtle sort of heat, of desire, of _wanting_... When he asked for more, his tongue teasing the seam of her lips, she gave way and really enjoyed how he tasted. How he smelled. How he made her feel like she was _more_ than good enough.

Without her full cognizance, time passed in the enjoyment of discovery until her cell phone vibrated. This time, she knew it was Alice. She just _knew_ it. And she sighed.

Felix leaned his broad forehead on hers. "They might be worried about you."

She smiled and kissed his cheek. "You're kind to think of them."

"Kind?" He laughed and held her as he hopped to his feet. "That must be a secret in your shielded mind, Isabella. Let no one know you think so."

"I won't!" She got her phone from the pocket of her jeans. "Yes, sister-mine?"

"What are you doing? We came down and you were gone and he was gone and Jasper got all upset and I had a vision of the two of you in Volterra, Bella!"

Bella glanced up at Felix with a helpless sort of shrug. He returned it with a smile. "I'm not going to Volterra, Alice. Relax. I'll be right home. Tell Jasper to chill out."

"Very funny," she heard from Jasper in the background.

Not to be outdone, Felix said, "I'll bring her right home."

"Just as soon as you kiss me goodnight," Bella insisted, deliberately closing her phone. "They are not my parents."

Felix laughed again, that rich sound that made her smile. "I consider myself fortunate."

When Alice insisted on leaving that very night for Canada, Felix took his leave as well. "But I will tell you as leader, Jasper Whitlock, that I have invited Isabella to return with me if she wishes, to learn how to best control her shield."

"Right," Jasper shot back, tugging both Alice and Bella a few feet further from the imposing Volturi Guardsman.

"You would all be welcome, you know. It is a fair proposition."

Jasper thanked him formally and Bella offered Felix the use of her motorcycle while they were away hunting. Jasper was not amused.

"Are you worried he'll break it?" Alice wondered with a light laugh as they eschewed vehicles and just ran at nearly full speed toward Canada.

Jasper shook his head and whipped a hank of hair from one eye. "No. I'm worried he'll still be there when we get back."

Bella didn't know how she felt about it when she found that he wasn't.

* * *

**A/N: For the record: My "Felix" is more like the powerful and attractive (IMO) Daniel Cudmore as he appears elsewhere, not as the raggedy rendition of him visible in Eclipse.**

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	6. In the Middle of It All, It's Nobody's Fault

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* * *

**Chapter 6: In the Middle of it All, It's Nobody's Fault**

"Bella!"

Alice felt quite protective of her best friend at Carlisle and Esme's house in Montana in the summer of 2018. "Mom" and "Dad" emerged, acting as if Bella had been _dead_ for two years instead of getting her Masters degree. They had never come to visit, but had been at the house when Edward finally brought Bronwyn home from England.

Alice had caught her in a vision, and had, with careful concentration, seen the whole of the first meeting between Bella and Edward's mate. Unless everyone made different decisions. She sighed a little.

"Esme! Carlisle!" Bella hugged the pair of them, her smile wide and genuine. Still, Alice saw Bella looking warily at the front door to the house. Alice had not let her go into this unwarned. "So, where're Rose and Emmett?"

"Hunting. They've been out with Bronwyn, but they don't hunt when she does."

"She doesn't hunt with Edward?" Alice inquired.

Carlisle's smile was rather knowing as he tilted his head slightly toward her. "Well, he _has_ , but she feeds better if she is not _distracted_."

"Ah." The inference in Carlisle's words and tone told her all she needed about how Edward distracted Bronwyn. Didn't she know exactly how that felt?

She did her best to keep her feelings to herself so as not to bother Jasper. But inside, she felt wrecked. Two years apart. _Two years_. She didn't think she would feel so strongly after all this time. She had been propositioned twice by vampires and had kissed one. And liked it! But now, faced with seeing her ex-husband, Bella could only cling to her composure with naked fingernails.

 _His step_. She knew its pattern. As Alice led her into the house, as Jasper followed, Bella knew they were doing their best to continue in support of her. They loved her. She _so_ owed them, she felt. Taking a quick breath, she smelled _him_ and her mind nearly went blank in the shock of it.

"Bella," Edward said in tentative greeting. Standing at the foot of the stairs, he looked — just the same. His eyes were still golden. His hair still a mess. His clothes were exactly the same as he'd ever worn, she was sure.

_Am I in a time warp, where I'm the only one who's changed?_

"Edward. You're looking well." Formal words, like a ritual. Rituals were a little like shields themselves, providing structure to hide behind when one didn't know what to do or to say.

Compassion and remorse flared in his topaz eyes. "So are you. Congratulations are in order."

She smiled, not moving her eyes to the dark-haired woman behind him. "Thank you. I got your card." He didn't know she had immediately burned it in the fireplace. It had been burning or cutting out his signature to put in her wallet, and she opted to make it go away. "I'm going to be helping with a new textbook for Houghton-Mifflin. My first job," she told him proudly. She could make it without him. She _could_ and she _would_.

Alice wrapped her arm around Bella's waist and concentrated. Bella's emotional state had just blurred out the future, which was frustrating but Alice understood. Edward reached his hand back and took Bronwyn's. Bella stiffened, but only for a moment. Alice felt a bit sorry for her mate, but there was nothing they could do and Jasper had hunted just the day before so he was fortified against the emotional onslaughts the upcoming days were sure to bring.

"You remember Bronwyn?" Edward asked tentatively.

Barely missing a beat, Bella stepped forward and shook the other woman's hand. "Of course. Hello, Bronwyn." They could all see that Edward's mate had eyes of amber, now. Not the pure gold of the committed "vegetarian vampire," but it was clear she was trying.

Bronwyn was obviously uncomfortable, but also clearly felt threatened by the presence of her mate's former spouse. Her eyes narrowed as she held Bella's hand. "Hello. We weren't sure you'd be joining us," she stated, her Northern accent heavy.

Jasper gulped down air and braced himself. Sending out an invisible blanket of calm acceptance, he did his best to muffle the hostility he felt coming from the latest addition to the Cullen family.

Carlisle, eyes wide with surprise that Jasper felt easily, stepped forward and took Bronwyn's and Bella's hands in his own. "Of course. We're all family, here. Bella, it is so good to see you." Leading her away with no subtlety whatsoever, he continued. "I heard from my friend Aro in Italy that one of his Guardsmen was quite taken with you."

The empath withdrew the blanket he had lain over the group and relaxed somewhat. Alice bounced up to kiss his cheek. "He really was," she gushed, with perhaps more enthusiasm than she had felt at that time. Jasper felt a ribbon of protective concern, defensiveness and a certain feminine defiance wrapped around his Sprite as she told the room at large about Felix's visit and his offer to Bella as well as Randall the nomad and _his_ offer to Bella. "And Jasper," Alice concluded, "told me that his office mate at Cornell had a huge crush on her."

"Alice! Stop it!" Bella nearly shouted, unable to pretend anymore that she didn't hear her dearest friend's recitation of her "conquests."

Esme, though, was beaming. "Well, now that school is finished, Bella, you might have a little more freedom to explore your options."

Alice bristled, but Jasper's hands on her shoulders soothed her a bit. Bella caught her eye with a grateful look. Esme and Carlisle appeared startled, while Edward just stared. Alice held Bella's gaze, determined to keep her friend from scampering off under the misguided idea that she as at fault for anything going on in the room.

* * *

She knew it would happen and, a few years ago, she would have been as involved as the rest of them. All bedrooms occupied, all but one inhabited by mated pairs making love with various degrees of powerful enthusiasm — unintentionally aided by Jasper — while she tried to block out the passionate growls, moans and crashes with music. The lust was harder to manage. It churned within her, making her want to relieve the pressures building inside, but she didn't. She couldn't. She didn't think she'd be able to, knowing that there was absolutely no privacy in this house right now.

"Out," she whispered almost soundlessly. "Out."

She changed into dark jeans and a tank top before heading out into the Montana night. Barefoot, with her hair up in a ponytail, she ran until the emotional ambiance of the house was far behind her. Then, out in the middle of what felt like an open plain, she threw back her head and screamed her frustrations into the darkness. Her mind felt as if a hot air balloon inflated in the blink of an eye, giving her more room in her skull, sending shockwaves from her skin out into the world.

It felt amazing, so she did it again. And again. Each time, she required less emotion to inflate the balloon. Each time, she was more aware of how it felt. Each time, it was a release of expression.

It was also rather exhausting. In her entire vampire existence, she couldn't remember feeling so enervated. Smiling, relieved that no one was there to see, she collapsed happily into the tall, waving grasses about her and just breathed. Until, that is, she heard her name.

"Bella!" Edward and only Edward was not far from her. She clenched her jaw, all giddiness swept away by the sound of his worried voice. "Bella?"

"I'm here. I'm fine."

"I hate it when you say that." His scent preceded him but he arrived soon after, arms akimbo as he studied her.

"Say what?"

"That you're fine. You're clearly not _fine_ , Bella."

She jumped to her feet to confront him, hands in fists once again. "But I was. I was happy and feeling good about myself until you showed up."

He appeared nonplussed, relaxing and studying her thoughtfully. "But, but you were screaming and I heard you. I had to come. The rest will be here soon..."

She rolled her eyes and started back. "Great, just great. I just had to get away, not drag you out with me."

"But I _heard_ you, Bella. Your _thoughts_. You were upset." The wonder of the experience was evident in his voice.

Turning for a moment, she said simply, "I had to get away."

"Ah. I do understand." With a rueful shrug and smile, he was at her side and they walked back together. "Imagine decades of that."

 _Not quite, Edward,_ she thought. _Your first wife was never having sex with another man under the same roof before._ She didn't say that out loud, though. There really was no point. "Yeah, well. Going nomad has its appeal."

"Bella!"

"What?"

"You can't mean it." He tugged at her arm and turned her to face him. Glaring, she did so. "We're your family."

"I'm only a Cullen because you made me one," she reminded him flatly. "Like Alice. Like Jasper. I was grafted in with a, a wedding band and told to grow."

He dropped his hand. "I am so, so sorry," he whispered at length. "You —"

With an abrupt motion of her hand, she waved him off and resumed her walk. "No. Don't. It's over, Edward. No apologies. No forgiveness needed. No one's to blame, okay? It just...is."

His steps paced hers and, not too far off, she could hear the combined voices of the rest of the family, including Brownyn. Edward cleared his throat in a human manner. "Are you happy with them?"

"Happy enough, yes. Alice says she's _seen_ me happy. And we have good times. The house is lovely and school was good. We've grown closer, Alice and I have. And Jasper, too. He taught me to fight, you know."

Whatever Edward might have answered after recovering from _that_ shock was left unknown for Alice reached her, taking Bella's hands in her own. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Uncomfortable, still, with all the attention, she looked over everyone's heads. "Sorry to have freaked anyone out. I was just experimenting."

Jasper sent her a slanted smile as he brushed the hair off his forehead. "Yeah, I caught some of that, sugar. Gotta watch how you let loose, you know?"

The feeling of excitement that Bella had relished while pushing her shield out returned and she laughed and tried and expanded her shield once again, encompassing them all within it for a few seconds.

"Smug, aren't you?" Alice whispered as they jogged back over the grasses to the house.

"You bet."

Citing her work, Bella remained with her laptop computer in her room or on her own out of doors for the rest of the week that encompassed the Cullen Family Reunion. "You're putting on a brave face," Jasper told her in an aside on the last family hunting trip. "But you're not fooling the empath. Remember that."

"I'm fine," she insisted. "I just want to go home." And when they left, that was exactly how it felt to her: like going home.

* * *

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	7. Let the Rain Come Down

**A/N: I know, the last chapter was brutal to many of you. Thanks for continuing! :)**

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**Chapter 7: Let the Rain Come Down**

"I cannot _believe_ I'm asking you, but Al, I'm meeting with the publishers in person for the first time at noon today and I need a makeover."

"Oh, I'm so glad! I wasn't going to say anything," Alice said, her body already in motion in the pre-dawn hours of a Monday. "I really wasn't, because I respect you, Bell, but I am _so glad_ you asked for help!"

Jasper chuckled as he read the latest "What Really Happened" quasi-historical rendition of the War of Northern Aggression. He was relieved that Bella had bounced back from the stressful family reunion. He was relieved, too, that he hadn't been as worn out as he thought he might be. Mostly, though, he was relieved by the way Bella had said, hugging him and Alice close, that they were her family. She felt at home with them and she hoped they felt the same.

Really, he didn't feel like making the Family Reunion scenario happen too often in the future, either.

The bright happiness upstairs, seasoned with wry humor and stirred with giggles, was so wholesome that he put his book down and just basked for a while with his eyes shut. When Alice had envisioned Bella staying with them while she got over her split with Edward, Jasper wouldn't have denied his wife, of course. But he had never expected to find his life enriched by his little sister/friend, either. And Bella _was_ a friend. A good one. They spent hours upon hours talking every week while Alice was brightening the lives of others with her gift for organizing. Isabella was an apt student and not a bad teacher, either.

More than all of that, though, she _fit_ with them. And if he had to be a leader of a coven, odd as that felt to his psyche, he guessed that he could handle it. Even if she found her mate someday and brought him to live with them. But maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she _would_ go nomad at some point...

He would miss her. Alice would miss her. And the fizzling buoyancy that was pleasantly tickling his awareness would be no more. But if Bella were happy, that was what mattered. It was what he had sort of committed himself to years ago, when he had agreed to break off from the Cullens with his mate to watch-care over Bella while she mourned and moved on from her former life.

 _I wouldn't trade it back_ , he mused with a nod.

* * *

"Where are we going?" Bella muttered as they reached the airport. "You said we were going out for the weekend to _have fun_."

Jasper grinned as he maneuvered the car into the overnight lot. "And we are, sugar."

"On a plane? Us?"

Alice crossed her hands in a smooth show of superiority. "Yes. Us. What we're going to do, sister-dear, cannot be done anywhere near Ithaca. So we're going to a place where it is done. Regularly."

"But what about my work? And that office event you had scheduled for tomorrow?"

"That's what staff is for, Bella. Come on, can't we just have fun?" Alice turned in her seat to turn on the big puppy-dog eyes and Bella sighed. "Thank you!"

Flying in a commercial airliner was not Alice's favorite way to get from Point A to Point B, but she was going to take her mate and best friend to Switzerland to go cliff diving. It was not widely known unless one watched The Discovery Channel, but Switzerland had fantastic opportunities for diving from intense, dramatic cliffs. Oh, sure, they could have gone to Hawai'i, but the sun did present a problem. Cloud cover was sporadic and even torrential rain was not reliable with the tradewinds prevalent over the islands. Switzerland, though, was cooler, so wearing full-body swimsuits, such as were worn to swim in icy ocean waters, would not be as unusual.

Jasper was going to look amazing in his suit. Bella, too. Alice smiled to herself as they flew in their first class seats. Fewer people up here for this flight — costs tended to be prohibitive — so the recycled scents of human blood weren't quite as overpowering. Jasper had been handling his bloodlust much better in the past few years, too. Since Bella had been changed, actually.

For the seer, it merely solidified her conviction that she had chosen the right course when she acted on the vision to take Bella and move from the Cullens. Without all the other vampires always lusting after blood, Jasper didn't have to deal with the bombardment on his own willpower. Bella seemed to rarely even consider human blood, which was another plus, as far as Alice was concerned.

Jasper having taken the window seat, Alice was free to look around and surreptitiously study Bella across the aisle. She sat alone, yes, but didn't look bereft. That had been a possible result of getting together with the Cullens, but Bella rarely reacted as expected. Instead of coming away defeated, exhausted or morose, she was invigorated and determined to pursue her own interests.

And to have _fun_.

Alice's mind sought possible futures, wondering if Bella would find her mate. Jasper had been bringing it up in quiet, private moments when Bella was working or hunting solo.

* * *

"You need to remember to let her live her life, Sprite, all right? If that time comes?"

"If?" Alice had wondered. "Don't you think she will?"

Jasper had wrapped her up against his powerful chest and nuzzled her scalp. "Mates are not as common as they are with the Cullens, sugar. You wandered how many years before you saw me?"

"Irrelevant. I knew you were coming."

He brushed his lips against her temple. "Fine. How many decades did I wander?"

"Irrelevant again, Southern Boy. You were always mine. I knew it way before we met."

Jasper had chuckled. "Fair enough. Carlisle, though, waited for _centuries_." He leaned his head back and eyed her very seriously. "You know I think the world of Bella. I do. But what if she's alone that long? Do you think we should encourage her in her course to wait for a mate, hon?"

Surprised, Alice asked, "Are you asking me to _see_ , Jasper?" It was not something he usually requested, because he felt that what she already saw was quite enough, but sometimes...if it really mattered to him...

"I am," he said solemnly.

* * *

In the plane, thousands of miles from everything but one another, Alice studied Bella again. She was attractive. Appealing, certainly. Heaven knew that human males saw her allure, and the air of vulnerability that she often held, and wanted her in so many ways. Drove Jasper crazy sometimes, trying to let their emotions slide away from him. But Bella was also stubborn. Dreadfully stubborn. Willing to do and suffer and even die if she believed the cause was worth it.

How long would she have to wait to find a mate? Would she ever? Would she let herself love without that bond-surety? Alice gripped Jasper's hand, thankful more than ever that they had one another. Carlisle had had to wait centuries before meeting Esme, his mate. As far as they knew, he hadn't loved before Esme, either. _He_ tended to see mating as the one great change in a vampire's existence. Maybe _that_ was why he didn't fall in love before. But Edward, his first-created, had fallen in love...

Surely, for someone who had been hurt like their Bella, there would be a mate. She really was such a wonderful woman.

"What has you spinning, Sprite?" Jasper murmured in her ear. Tingles of pleasure washed over her at the sexy timber of his voice and the way his breath made her feel. "You're all over the map."

"Bella."

"Ah, yeah."

Bella turned at that moment, caught them studying her, and rolled her eyes. "I. Am. Fine," she mouthed.

Then, she deliberately flipped open the in-flight movie screen and turned it on. It was Classic 80's Weekend and Alice and Jasper decided Bella had the right idea. _The_ _Breakfast Club_ it was.

* * *

Discomfort drifted from Bella as she shrugged off the cover-up she had over the modified wetsuit. Jasper felt it and hid his smile. The suits left _nothing_ to the imagination save the color of someone's skin, that was for certain. Alice slid out of her her dress too, and Jasper absolutely appreciated the view.

"See, Bell? I told you he was going to look so sexy," Alice whispered. A hot, jagged bolt of desire shot from his wife to himself and Jasper did his best to hold it together because these suits _really didn't_ hide a damned thing. "Well?"

Embarrassment and apology flared briefly. "Yes, _Al_. He looks sexy. Okay? Do I have to die of humiliation now or can I jump off the cliff and do it in the water?"

"Uh oh, Jasper! Bella wants to do it in the water!"

In spite of himself, Jasper had to laugh. And he kept laughing as Bella, using her superior height, picked up Alice and threatened to throw her over the cliff. Picking up on Bella's intent and playful determination, Jasper ran to the women and half-lifted them to leap from the cliff. It had been an impulsive act and, he reflected as they plummeted through the air to the rough water, maybe stupid. Tightening his grip on Alice and Bella, he did what he could internally to brace himself while two females screamed and shot off vibes of excitement, lust, fear, worry and joy.

Being an empath drove him crazy.

Down they plunged, bubbles shooting up like rocket trails in the opposite direction, displaced water swirling loudly in their ears. Laughter resounded in the water as well, their heightened senses making the small waves of sound echo just as Jasper's feet hit a flat surface. Then up they went.

"Wow!" Bella shouted as they broke through to the air. "Wow! I think that was the most incredible thing!"

Equally enthused, Alice wrapped her tiny body around Jasper and pulled Bella in for a watery embrace, too. "We _so_ have to do that again. I told you we'd have fun!"

* * *

"So, the fun times continue?" Bella asked _sotto voce_ for the benefit of the lingering humans. Winter in New York meant summer Down Under and diving under an overcast sky on the Great Barrier Reef was another in a long list of "fun" activities Alice had organized for them.

In truth, Bella absolutely appreciated all the time and effort. The three of them had traveled all over the world, it seemed, in pursuit of activities that required adventurousness, daring, and a good sense of communal humor. She had been having a blast.

Protesting it all had become _quid pro forma_ , of course. The balance on the other side of the "fun" sheet required token nay-saying. The three of them understood it was a game, though, and no feelings got hurt at all. Which was a good thing, seeing as how they all lived together and were cursed with eternally perfect memories.

"Yep, you know it, sugar," Jasper replied, tugging on the thick braid that hung down her back over the wetsuit. This time, the wetsuit was neon purple. Alice's was yellow and Jasper counted himself fortunate indeed that his mate didn't think it was necessary for _him_ to go Technicolor too.

Alice wrapped an arm around each of them. "Now, come on. Remember to pretend to breathe or something, okay? Not that anyone will be paying any attention to our _breath_ ," she slid out at a nearly-inaudible pitch. Looking around them, all three could see that they were certainly a cynosure of all eyes at one time or another.

"They're probably just amazed they can still see, what with the bright suits, Alice," Bella volunteered.

Jasper shook his head. "Nope. Jealous and curious, every single one."

With a knowing light in her honeyed eyes, Alice nudged her best friend. "Listen to the whispers," she urged.

" _Dude, is he tapping both those asses?"_

" _So not fair. Bet they both got work done."_

" _Think they do him at the same time or do they trade off?"_

" _Whoa, I bet they're sisters and that would mean..."_

" _Really?"_

Bella knew that her cheeks would have been flaming with embarrassment if she had blood in her body. Turning so that she wasn't facing any human, she met only the passive expressions of Jasper and Alice, who each took one of her hands, further fueling speculation. "This is so...weird."

Speaking at a pitch unheard by humans, Jasper agreed. "But, sugar, it's the norm for us. Been hearing comments like this for a long time."

"It was even more convoluted when we all lived together. Remember Forks High at all? The gossip was ridiculous."

"Especially because some of it was kind of true, in a way," Jasper tagged on with a small smile at his mate.

Bella felt a dark ember of envy flare briefly within her, but she doused it under internal ashes. The obvious connection Alice and Jasper had for each other was so vibrant that she wondered how anyone could even think that she, Bella, was involved romantically with them at all. But then, humans couldn't discern a mate-bond, could they?

 _I want that,_ she thought again, for the four hundred and third time since she had been counting. A vampire mate-bond relationship. Obvious love and connection. Was it too much to ask?

With a strange-for-a-vampire jerky motion, she turned and, ignoring the gossiping humans, wondered if somewhere out there, there was a mate for her.

* * *

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	8. You're Making Me Feel Not Alone

**  
**

* * *

**Chapter 8: You're Making Me Feel Not Alone**

"For vampires, they are certainly beset by springtime breeding hormones or something," Bella muttered to her laptop. She was working with a smaller publisher for a home-schooling series. Elementary school science, with a teaching manual, student manual and accompanying workbook, as well as in-home labs that would be educational and also a bit entertaining for children.

What did she know about children? Only what she had learned working on her Masters. Still, it was an interesting job and she got more freedom with this company so she felt the experience was good. If one was going to be around for an eternity, one should try to be of use.

Even if she had to take her work way the hell outside on a small table because Jasper and Alice were at it again. She had worked with her shield, even, to do her best to keep the heavy desire and playful intensity from affecting her, but that had only worked for a few minutes... So, outside it was.

She checked her email while she waited for the _heat_ to die down within the house. A note from one publisher, an offer from another grad school, emails from Esme and Carlisle — separate, since they both maintained relationships with the extended family independent of one another, and one email from an address she didn't recognize but that went to her personal account.

**_Subject: Surprise from the Snowman!_ **

**_May 20, 2020_ **

**_Bella,_ **

**_I bet you didn't expect to hear from me, did you? Well, even nomads can access email in libraries. I'm in Washington State right now, in Port Angeles. Have you ever been out this way? It's a good place. Sometimes, I can even wander around in the daylight, since there are so many cloudy days. Are you still in school or have you decided to try something new? If you ever think you might want out of the cage, let me know. I can meet you out here and show you that nomadic life isn't that bad._ **

**_\- Randall_ **

**_P.S. Lots of wildlife out here. You know, your kind. Ha ha._ **

She had to smile as she read the note. It had been more than two years since he had left her in "the cage" after she declined his offer to run with him. That he was near Forks, her former home, was surprising in one way but the Cullens maintained that the Olympic Peninsula was a haven for their kind, really. So maybe not surprising at all that Randall would have made his way there.

**_Randall,_ **

**_Hello! Good to hear from you! I actually lived in Forks for a time before and shortly after I got married. Glad you're enjoying it. Thank you for renewing your invitation. Still not ready to leave the cage yet, but sometimes it is tempting to think about._ **

**_Do me a favor, if you would. Don't go drinking in Forks, okay?_ **

**_~Bella_ **

Still thinking fondly, and with some lingering trepidation, about Randall, she returned to the house. Where the Whitlocks were engaging in some post-coital pillow-talk. It was for times like this that Bella had purchased earbuds. With music coming directly into her ear canal, it was easier to tune out the other sounds in the house.

Resolving to get them plugged into her laptop as soon as she got to her room, she still heard Jasper say, "She's back."

"I know." And then, so quietly that Bella could almost believe they meant for her not to hear, Alice asked, "How is she?"

A chuckle. "Annoyed."

"Bella?"

With a sigh, Bella flashed to her room and set her laptop to recharge. Some things even vampires couldn't get around. "Coming..."

Doing her best to play this off as "fun" instead of embarrassing, Bella held her hand over her eyes as she opened the master bedroom door. "Are you decent?"

"Like we'd ask you to join us if we weren't," Alice said with a lilt.

Bella wrapped her awareness of that inner shield tightly around herself and playfully peeked through her fingers to see that yes, Jasper and Alice were covered and lounging under bleached white bedsheets. The patterned comforter that finished their bedroom's "look" was on the floor. "What did you want?"

"Come and sit," Alice invited. Jasper shrugged as if helpless to comment.

Sliding off her outdoor shoes, Bella did so, feeling more than a little awkward to be all but joining the Whitlocks on their bed. "What?" she asked again.

Alice leaned forward, her bare arms wrapped around her knees. "I'm worried about you."

Exasperated, Bella slid off the bed again. "Well, don't be. I'm —"

" _Fine_ , yes, we know," the pair said in tandem.

Jasper continued, evidently speaking for both himself and his mate. "Sugar, we know you're fine. You are. I do keep an eye on you, you know." His smile slanted between them. "I think you're doing great and I don't mean to monitor you, any more than I purposefully monitor the Sprite, here." Alice bumped him in the ribs with her shoulder. "I think what we're most concerned about, hon, is that you're not happy."

"I am!"

He shook his head. "No, not like we both hope you'll be someday. I know how you feel when you're happy, Isabella. No one knows it better, and you'd have to say I have some basis for judgment, right?"

"Yeah." Bella decided to sit down again. When she did, both Alice and Jasper shifted too, to leave her more room at the foot of the bed. It made her smile and then, suddenly, she was overwhelmed by every single way they had made room for her. Her perfect recall, as if presenting a PowerPoint presentation, brought forth instance after instance of their accommodations, the way they showed her they loved her and cared for her. Her eyes burned but she couldn't cry. She knew that Jasper would misunderstand perhaps, the incredible burden she suddenly felt crushing her chest, so she bit her lip and tried to push it down.

Jasper shot a look at Alice, who lunged in less than a blink to wrap Bella in a heavy white sheet and two slender arms. "Hey, hey, honey," Alice crooned, rocking her. "I don't know what it is, but you don't have to be sad."

Bella shifted to embrace her best friend. "It's just that you two have done so much for me. You left the rest of the family, you moved across the country and have planned all these things for us to do together and," she went on, eyeing Jasper, "you do keep an eye on me and you've taught me so much. I feel like I'm such a burden to you. You have to worry about me all the time."

"Sugar, no," Jasper said, his expression set as he managed to keep himself covered from the hips down while moving across the bed to embrace both the women.

Alice sighed. "Ah, Bella, no. No, we love you. This is what family does. We love and care for each other." Pulling away, the smaller woman looked quite serious. "You are not a burden, not at all. And don't even think about packing up your laptop and going nomad on us, either, just because you feel like that, okay?"

Bella tugged at a length of her hair. "But really, wouldn't it be easier not to have to worry?"

Jasper made some sort of sound in his throat before pushing hair off of her face. "Like we wouldn't worry if you weren't with us? Do you think that goes away if we're not under the same roof? Thanks a lot, Isabella," he teased.

"All right, all right. I'll try not to feel that way," Bella said after a moment. "But you have to let me say _thank you_ , okay? Because, really, I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't — you know."

Bella didn't know what Alice had _seen_ , but Jasper evidently did; she could see it in the look they exchanged. In an instant, Bella decided that was one thing she did not want to know for herself. "I'm happy," she reminded them. "I am."

"But you want more," Jasper stated.

Looking down to folds in the sheet that was rumpled between the three of them, she shrugged. "Your point?"

Alice sighed and took her hand, playing with her fingers much as she had done right after Edward had left, years before. "I can't see you finding your mate," she whispered reluctantly. "Maybe the decision one of you needs to make hasn't been made, yet. Or maybe, like with Carlisle and Esme, your mate's not even born, yet. Or turned."

Bella stiffened but didn't withdraw her hand. "Oh. Do you want me to, um..." Baffled, she looked to both of them. "What am I supposed to do about that? I don't want you guys worrying about me."

"I'm not gonna tell you how to live out your love life, Bella," Jasper said, directing a narrowed look at his wife. "I'm not. I just wanted you to — to think about the possibility of loving again, that's all."

"This is so awkward," Bella murmured, wishing somehow that blushing was still an option. She really felt like she _needed_ to blush. Here was a naked, mated couple discussing her love life (or lack thereof) with her while they all sat on the same bed. A wave of humor hit her powerfully then and she had to laugh.

And laugh. Jasper's smile was smug.

And laugh. Alice hugged her, Jasper hugged her, and Bella hugged them back, fighting the giggles the whole time. And it felt...

Well, it felt great. Too great, maybe.

* * *

Riding the Ducati was still a rush. A release of sorts, and an affirmation. Bella gathered all the self-confidence with which her motorcycle imbued her as she reached Alice's storefront business, Pixie Party Planners. The slight drizzle didn't affect her in any way as she slid off her helmet and shook out her hair so that it tumbled down her back.

And she did notice that the bespectacled man in the dark gray suit coming out of the computer store next door to Alice's _noticed_ her, too. He was attractive, reminding her a bit of Edward, but more mature. And with a bit of scruffy beard currently in vogue along his jaw that appealed to her, too. Why was she noticing a human?

 _I must be getting desperate_ , she mused with subdued humor. _Damn if Jasper and Alice aren't getting to me._

"Bella! What're you doing down here?" Alice popped her head into the main showroom of her establishment. The walls here were a subdued, cheerful yellow, with white and blue accents. Various miniature scenarios were set up in the main showroom, with albums of successful parties Alice and her staff had organized over the years. Alice herself was, as always, a vision in a perfectly draped dress that managed to look businesslike but still playful.

 _Only she could pull that off,_ Bella thought with a smile. "I just wanted to see if you had anything planned for the next week or so."

Alice embraced her, practically vibrating with enthusiasm. "Oh, have you planned something fun for us, now?"

Guilt dug in a little near Bella's heart. "Actually, I'm going to give you and Jasper a break."

Alice's elfin features screwed up into a scowl. "A what?"

"A break. I've been invited to spend some time with Esme and Carlisle. I don't really want to go for a long time, like they've kind of asked, but for a few days, I thought I could. They're going to be moving on soon, you know."

Looking as if she'd sustained a serious punch to the midsection, Alice just stared at her. "But I thought we... Why didn't I see this?"

"Probably because it's not a big deal, really." Bella passed her hand through Alice's short hair. "I'm not moving out or anything. And really, won't it be nice for you and Jasper not to have to worry about me for a few days? No extra pairs of eyes or anything?"

"As if we worry about that!" At Bella's lifted brow, she bobbed her head a bit. "Okay, okay, so yes, we do take you into consideration and try not to go at it like monkeys if we know you're home, but Bella... Don't feel like you have to leave, ever."

"Hon, I leave all the time before it hits monkey-level. You know that." Bella didn't know how to tell her that she was feeling too sensitive about living intimately with them. Maybe if she just let go and found some kind of vampire sex toys or something, it would help? "This time, it'll just be for a week instead of a few hours."

"Promise you'll come back."

Bella met Alice's gaze with all solemnity. "I promise."

Alice stilled, clearly seeking the future. "Good! Okay. Then when you come back, we're going hunting. Together."

Bella heard Alice calling Jasper before she even got through the glass door.

* * *

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	9. And I Don't Wanna be Alone

 

**Chapter** **9:** **And** **I** **Don** **'** **t** **Wanna** **be** **Alone**

" _Please_ take the 'Stang, Bella," Jasper had asked. His tone was less a request and more a directive as they stood in the dining room of their home. "You're driving over two thousand miles and I'd personally feel better knowing you were surrounded by steel instead of leather."

She could have balked, could have insisted, but to what purpose? "I don't want you worrying about me. So okay."

His smile lit up his face. "Well, thank you. Not even a fight. I appreciate it, ma'am." He playfully bowed over her hand and she felt his amusement and his care for her through his gift as it communicated itself from his hand to hers. "Now, I know Alice is all worried and mother-henning you, but I'm not gonna do that, okay?"

" _Thank_ you."

Instead, Jasper just hugged her and she hugged him back and when he kissed the top of her head the way he kissed Alice's, she smiled wryly at his shoulder before pressing her lips to his cheek. And wrapping her inner whatever-it-was tightly around herself so he didn't feel how she felt, precisely.

Because if it was sometimes awkward to be close to a blissfully mated pair when they were half-dressed, it would be exponentially moreso to let either of them know she thought either of them were physically attractive. They were _vampires_ , they would tell her. Of course they were attractive.

Choosing her own travel wardrobe, she packed and loaded the red Mustang and headed to Montana. The trip was basically uneventful, as she skirted the southern edges of the Great Lakes before weaving a bit northward on the highway. Stopping for gas here and there, she rather enjoyed the solitude to be found as a solo, cross-country motorist. Rosalie had tweaked the Mustang's engine years ago and what was slated on Mapquest to be a drive of thirty-one hours would take about twenty-four. Bella didn't feel the need to hurry, exactly. It was kind of a relief to be able to think and feel and not have to manage the reactions of the vampires around her.

And think she did.

Esme had said that Edward and Bronwyn were with Emmett and Rosalie, showing the newest member of the family the joys of big game hunting.

"I think Rose has really taken to Bronwyn. Almost as if she feels sorry for her..." the maternal vampire had said on the most recent phone conversation. Bella couldn't help but remember the resentment Rose carried for herself. Choosing this life had condemned her forever in Rosalie Hale McCarty's eyes. Bella never once regretted being changed, though.

Ostensibly, Bella was going to visit to pick and choose which of her things would remain with "the parents" as they relocated. Several items from when she had been married to Edward remained with the Cullens, in storage, and it was time to divvy them up and donate them to local charities or ship them to New York. All things being equal, the Whitlocks could probably remain in Ithaca for another couple of years — or maybe three — without drawing undue attention to themselves. They were all "twenty-something" adults in their cover stories. The trip back to the Cullens wasn't necessary for the Whitlocks; Alice had experience with relocations and she and Esme had a system. Bella had yet to develop one as a single woman.

While she was away, Bella hoped to be able to think about what do to regarding Jasper and Alice's concerns for her. Perhaps thinking overmuch about a love life that was currently nonexistent was pitiful. She remembered being in love. And Edward had been a wonderful man to love, really. He had shown her so much and given her so much that it made her uncomfortable, but he had only done so out of his excess of passion. When she had been human, it had been hard for him and their relationship hadn't been smooth at all times. Any memories she retained about that time were vague and seemed insignificant in comparison to her vampire-memories. Those had, by and large, been exquisite.

Until the day he told her he had found his mate.

Driving through northern Ohio, she explored her own melancholy and acknowledged that she had loved Edward Cullen and might always love him...

_In_ _a_ _way_ _..._

But that he no longer held too much sway over her mind or heart. _Not_ _that_ _I_ _would_ _want_ _to_ _be_ _driving_ _so_ _far_ _to_ _see_ _Esme_ _if_ _I_ _knew_ _he_ _were_ _there_ , she acknowledged. Esme had told her that he wouldn't be, making the trip more appealing. She could move on.

Randall and Felix had given her reason to hope that even in the super-attractive race of vampires, she was not lacking in personal charms. But just because males might want to be with her didn't mean she would find her mate. Alice couldn't see it. Jasper was not encouraging her to wait for one. Indeed, Jasper seemed to encourage her to spread her wings a bit and be willing to find love somewhere.

 _But_ _how_ _do_ _I_ _trust_ _that_ _?_ _How_ _can_ _I_ _?_ she wondered as she continued to drive on Interstate 80. If she met someone and fell in love without being mated, _he_ could find _his_ mate and leave her and she'd be worse off than she was now, with a twice-broken heart. Or she might fall in love and then, sometime in the future, find _her_ true mate and experience the pain Edward had obviously felt in telling her what had happened. And that could conceivably devastate the man involved as she herself had been devastated.

Did she want to live a long, lonely couple of centuries like Carlisle and wait for a _mate_? After having experienced a full, loving relationship?

"No," she said aloud to the steering wheel of Jasper's 1966 Mustang. "No, I don't want to be by myself for centuries. I don't." But did she want to risk herself with loving someone who could move on from her? Or whom she might hurt if she found her heart's other half? She would hate to put someone through what Edward had put _her_ through when he found Bronwyn.

Maybe the answer was to do as their cousins in Alaska had done for quite some time: Have casual sexual relationships. Enjoy the company of a male and move on. Of course, _their_ tastes generally ran toward human men, but rumor had it that Tanya had had it bad for Edward, once upon a time.

"Vampire family stories... You could write a book," she muttered as the sky darkened again, the sun setting far, far ahead of her.

Maybe she should keep her options open. Jasper had taught her enough that she could survive as a nomad for a while, though the idea of living without anyone sounded too sadly solitary to handle for long. But how else could she meet someone to alleviate her current loneliness? Somehow, approaching Carlisle or Jasper — the oldest and most well-traveled vampires she knew — to ask for introductions to eligible males didn't sound like something she would enjoy. But then, Randall had just found her. Felix had been sent to find her...and she still had an open invitation there, she knew.

It was something to think about.

Bella pulled the Mustang around to the outbuilding that housed the Cullen automobile collection. One of Edward's lesser hobbies was car collecting, and he made sure every member of the family had a place to keep their cars. Even those of the family who lived apart. Jasper's Mustang had a place.

Bella's Ferrari had been sold years ago. Divorce was a messy business, even when amicable and uncontested.

Having secured the car, she shouldered her luggage and was unsurprised to find Esme and Carlisle there as she opened the door to the Montana autumn afternoon. "Bella!"

A familiar scent drifted about them, a scent that was stronger as they entered the house, and it took Bella a minute or so to figure out what it was. When she did, part of her mind just froze in shock. "You have company," she mentioned as if she were not internally freaking out.

"Oh, yes," Carlisle said after exchanging a look with Esme. They all worked their way up to "her" room as he explained. It was like being back in that time warp again, talking here. Her room was not much of a personal space, but many of "her" things were tucked away against walls of robin's egg blue with dark forest green accents. The bed was queen-sized; Bella privately thought that was Esme being optimistic. "Alistair dropped by quite unexpectedly."

With a sardonic edge to her voice, Bella said, "Because of course, people do cross the Atlantic and most of the continental United States on a whim to visit an old friend. Especially anti-social vampires."

Esme actually snorted a little in laughter. "That's what I thought, too," she confessed. "I think the man got lonely."

"No, I did not."

Bella remembered the voice because she had no choice but to do so. Clipped consonants, vowels from what she had learned were of The Midlands. "Alistair, it's been years since you've seen Bella. Come up," Carlisle invited.

With widened eyes, Bella rushed to put the rest of her clothing into the closet and dresser, moving at speeds that would be all but unseen by human eyes — if any humans had been about to try to find her. The sigh of the long-suffering vampire wafted up to them as she did so, but he came.

"Isabella Cullen," he intoned from the door to her suite.

Having just slid the final drawer closed on the maple dresser, she took a few moments to compose herself and study him. He was by all appearances a man in his thirties, not overly tall, being about five-eleven, but built along athletic lines. His hair was dark and clung closely to his head. Jaw angular, cheekbones pronounced, he was a man of odd parts, it appeared. His eyes, a brooding burgundy that told Bella he had not fed recently but was not thirsty, either, looked upon her with a sort of resonance.

She hoped he did not feel sorry for her. Stiffening a bit, she met his gaze with her own. "Alistair of York."

He appeared uncomfortable in his skin as he regarded her. "I feel almost as if I should apologize."

His demeanor was not precisely penitent, so Bella didn't know how to take that and flickered a glance to Carlisle before answering. "I cannot imagine why," she said, seemingly adopting his speech mannerisms.

"Bronwyn."

Well, of course she knew, but she had been _trying_ to be polite. Apparently, Alistair of York wasn't going to let this go easy. "You meant me no harm in changing her," Bella allowed. He flinched a little at his wrists and she wondered what that meant.

"This I know, but it worked ill for you and I am sorry for it." His tone caught her ear. "And after you left with Edward Cullen, she was sorry for it, too. Sure she thought he was gone."

"Did you come visit to check up on her?" Bella wondered. It was at this point that Carlisle and Esme seemed to come to some agreement to leave the room. Bella remained motionless at the dresser while Alistair stepped twenty-nine inches inside from the hall. "I understood she and Edward were hunting."

Alistair made a disdainful sound. "Yes, he has persuaded her to forsake our natural prey for beasts. I was concerned for her." With a grimace, he met Bella's eye. "I've never sired anyone before, and I am likely experiencing latent paternal consternation."

In spite of his attitude, she had to chuckle and said, "Did you come to Carlisle to see if he had advice?"

Alistair took two carefully measured steps nearer to her, no humor anywhere near the corners of his mouth or in his darkening eyes. "No. I think I came here for you."

* * *

**  
**


	10. Honesty Knows I Wasn't Ready

  


Bella stared, wide-eyed, into Alistair's intense expression. "What?"

He compressed his lips and looked around before closing his eyes for an instant. "Would you take a walk with me? I admire Carlisle and Esme, but am not accustomed to having an audience when I speak."

The sun was still on the higher side of afternoon as they left the house and began to walk, just walk, into the tall grasses. A chilly wind surprised her, tossing her hair in front of her face. She had not had time to change, so was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Alistair was not dressed to stand out, either. In dark trousers and pale dress shirt, he looked as if he were on his way home after an exhausting series of meetings. The wind that disordered her hair seemed oddly to comb his, so that he appeared better equipped to face the world. They walked at a slow pace as he seemed in no hurry to reach any sort of destination.

His continued silence was frustrating. Bella sliced into it. "You are perhaps the last person I expected to see here." _There, let him start from there_.

Darting a sidelong glance her way, his step faltered not at all. "I am not the sort, as you will remember, to travel or take pleasure in the company of others, Isabella. I was rather surprised to find myself responsible for Bronwyn."

"I can imagine," she murmured. She really was trying to be polite. Still. "But you didn't need to find me to apologize, Alistair."

In an abrupt change of subject, he stopped and turned to look at her. "Do you know how my gift works?"

Surprise showed on her face. "I wasn't aware you had a gift, Alistair. Carlisle, as a rule, is the soul of discretion."

The older vampire's lips twitched in what might almost have been a smile with some effort. The wind pushed his hair rakishly across his forehead and she decided that, eyes aside, he was quite attractive. "Yes, quite the fellow, is Carlisle. My closest friend, did you know that? Though how," he went on with a sigh, "he remains in close contact with humans is beyond anyone's reckoning. And I don't just mean mine, young Isabella. I mean _anyone's_."

Bella smiled and tucked a windblown portion of her own hair behind her ear, hoping it would stay there. "He wants to use his capabilities as a vampire to help humans, you know. He says the blood doesn't really call to him at all, anymore." The talk of Carlisle did nothing to satisfy her curiosity about why Alistair said he thought he was here for her, however, and in her current frame of mind, that was pressing. "So what does this have to do with you coming to Montana? I wasn't even here, if you were looking for me."

At this, an entirely unexpected flash of embarrassment accented Alistair's features. "Er, yes. I knew that. I knew you would be here, however, and that our paths would intersect."

"What kind of gift do you have?"

"I find things."

"Like a tracker?"

One heavy black brow rose. "Hardly. A tracker can find people, granted. I know of some who are quite good. I find anything."

"Anything?" She almost didn't believe him, but she had not honestly met a vampire who lied outright about a vampire gift. Perhaps this was due to "growing up Cullen" in the vampire world or because she just ran with a higher caliber crowd, but Bella did choose to believe Alistair. "Like a book or something?"

He laughed a little, and it was good for his face. The orange light of the rapidly darkening sky bounced off his skin. "Like anything. I don't forget where I left my books, but if, for example, you had lost something or someone, you could tell me about it and, if I concentrated, I could find it for you."

Duly impressed, Bella had to smile. "That's some gift. I know you tend to hold yourself aloof from the rest of us, but — I guess I can understand why you might."

He began walking again, taking a long route that would lead them back to the house eventually. "Yes. I did mix more with others, centuries ago."

"Centuries?"

"Indeed. But that is not why I am here."

"Tell me?"

He raked a hand through his hair but kept up his pace. "Bronwyn was an anomaly in my long existence. When she left, I was originally relieved, but I came to miss her."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Bella murmured. "Truly. I know how that can be."

"Not like that," Alistair snapped. "I just missed her with me. She had an eager mind, for all her newborn slavering, and when she was in her more coherent moments, she could carry on a decent conversation." He eyed her a moment, but she had nothing to say, so he continued. "I started to imagine having someone there with whom to converse," he went on, his tone more formal in timbre and speed. "And I wanted to find someone that would suit."

Without thinking about it, she caught him by the forearm, where the admittedly fine fabric of his shirt did nothing to disguise the defined muscles there. "Wait. So, me? This, this thing you do...? Pointed to me?"

Discomfort fairly blasted from his whole body — years of living with Jasper and hearing his comments on others' emotions had given her a good understanding for what these emotions looked like when manifested in a person. "I thought initially that I was seeking Bronwyn again..."

Bella felt as if she'd been slapped and turned to continue to walk back to the house at nearly her top walking speed. "Oh. Well, a bit late on that one, don't you think?"

"Isabella!" He caught her hand in his and there was no remarkable sensation save the strength of his conviction as he tugged her to a halt. He pondered their joined hands, as she did herself, as he tried to explain. "No. I called Carlisle, of course, to assure myself that the mate bond between his son and my, my _daughter_ was a true one. He assured me it was. And then he said —"

"No he didn't. No way. He did not say I was available!" With a move Jasper had taught her, involving a quick revolution of her wrist, Bella got out of Alistair's firm grip and took off at a run. "I cannot believe those people. Matchmaking vampires. Worse than Alice at organizing people, I swear."

"Stop! Just hear me out."

"What?" She didn't stop, but she could listen, she decided.

"Would you come back with me?"

At that, she halted entirely and stared at him. "What?"

The brooding expression had returned. "I know you heard me. I am not offering you eternal devotion, Isabella. But when Carlisle mentioned you, I remembered you and knew you and thought on you and though my, my gift pointed to New York, where I understand you are now living with a mated pair?"

"Jasper and Alice Whitlock, yes."

"Yes. My gift also led me here, because it knew that you would be here. And so I came."

"For Bronwyn."

"No. I came for you."

He made no other move to touch her, not even to hold her hand as they returned at a slow run to the house. Bella's mind raced, and she was enormously relieved Jasper wasn't around to catch her fluctuations of emotions.

Alistair was lonely. He wanted _companionship_. "You want...company?"

He laughed lightly, sounding a bit relieved. "Yes. _Feminine_ company."

"Oh."

At the house at last, he stopped in front of her and took her hands in both of his. "And you?"

Was he what she wanted or needed? Would his gift, however it worked, send him to her if this would be detrimental to her? Slowly, she tried to answer him in measured words. "I don't know that I would be ready to go away with you."

He nodded. "Fair enough. You have a job, as I understand it."

"Yes."

With a smile he moved to hold the door open for her. "You know, this is more than I have spoken in quite some time. _Years_ , Isabella."

"I imagine you'll be craving the solitude soon. I know that it was healing for me, at one point."

"You are undoubtedly correct. I will. I told you I am not thinking forever," he added with a warning in his glance and voice.

He was not her mate and she didn't know that he would even inspire love. But she could get to know him, couldn't she? "Neither am I."

"Fair enough."

**[++]**

In his small office at Cornell University, Jasper was finishing his grading for his sophomore-level Civil War course. The routine was set, and the sheet with the grades would print momentarily so that he could post it outside the office and his students could come by at their leisure to find out how they did on the exam if they were around. Or they could check on the class website if they chose.

It was a normal late afternoon. He was feeling out of sorts, however.

Dr. Seko, still his office mate as both of them were working with apparent fervor to "publish" and somehow attain the desired ranking of full professor, entered and tossed his jacked on the coat-tree. "Whitlock."

"Seko. How'd it go?"

"Good. The editors like the proposal, man, so I might be able to make this one fly."

"Well, good," Jasper said, crossing his legs in a human manner. "I wish you all the best."

Seko powered up his laptop and asked with feigned casualness. "So, how's your sister-in-law? She graduated, right?"

Not bothering to hide his smile, Jasper engaged in the entirely human prospect of heating water for instant coffee. Seko liked it and a hot mug warmed Jasper's own hands which was good for the end-of-day handshake. "Yep, she did. She's been helping write textbooks."

Seko flared pleasure edged with the lightest green of envy. "That's great, man. So, is she seeing anyone?"

At that, Jasper felt he could chuckle without any suspicion. So he did. "Not last time I heard, no. She hasn't brought anybody home, anyway." _And Seko? You're not her type. Trust me on this one_.

"Well, tell her hello for me, would you?"

"Sure thing." _Nope, not gonna happen._

The water heated in the electric kettle and the men both made coffee. Jasper held his just long enough to warm his skin before putting his laptop away and shoving a couple of prop-books into a battered attaché. Hands were shaken, goodnights said, and Dr. Whitlock headed out into the night.

He kind of missed Bella, on evenings like this. They had used to spend time together at the end of a school day, talking until Alice came home and then the three of them would talk or — or he and Alice would head up or out for some privacy. It was hard on Bella, but he knew she understood. No one was more forgiving of others' needs and whims and requirements as Bella Swan.

Bella _Cullen_.

Bella _Brandon_. And who knew whom she would be when they moved again?

 _Will she even be with us?_ he wondered. Forgiving and understanding as she might be, the woman was frustrated in a big way. And her frustration did not do anything to decrease the cause of her frustration. He supposed if they had been housemates with any other unmated vampire on earth, he would feel plenty uncomfortable to pick up on that emotional signature on a regular basis. But not with Bella. He knew her.

He just wished she didn't have to feel that way. She was his sister of sorts and a good friend and he wanted to help.

Alice wouldn't be due home for about half an hour, so Jasper decided to get his shower early and check his personal email.

_Jasper ~_

_So how're the college brats treating you? I feel like Emm and I are on babysitting duty, I swear. Our brother is happy, and that's good, but he still gets emo on occasion. You know I thought that was a ridiculous word when the kids started using it in the nineties, but it applies to Eddie boy._

_He is well-mated to Bratwyn, let me tell you. Oh, he is not fond of_ _ that _ _name, either, but he should just stay the hell out of my head, right?_

_Emmett says hi. He wants to come see you and Alice and Bella too. Is she still with you?_

_Gotta go. Bratwyn wants to go look at the animals again. I swear, she should have just paid safari guides or Big White Hunters._

_~ Rose_

Jasper snorted as he read his sister's note. _Bratwyn_. That was funny. And yeah, it would be great to see Emmett again.

But would Bella be here? And how would Emmett feel if he knew how awkward it sometimes got? With Emm and Rose, Bella would take to hiding in the woods all the damned time, for sure.

As he allowed his mind to work on that, the distinctive sound of solid Porsche engineering approached the house. He always felt a burst of anticipation when he heard his mate arriving to join him anywhere. Nothing like that on earth, really.

"Honey! I'm ho-o-ome!" She dropped her bag and leapt into his arms, her nose burying itself in its accustomed place at the base of his throat. Scent was important for their kind, and their immersion in one another was, Jasper knew, a comfort and reassurance after any time spent apart.

"Welcome back, sugar. How was your day?"

"Lord, don't we sound domestic. I had a vision, Jasper, and it's kind of freaking me out."

Scooping her up entirely, he crossed the house to get settled on the sofa in the living room. He could just imagine her dark hair on the white bear rug in front of the hearth, actually, and his own "vision" communicated itself to her as desire.

She battled it off, smacking him lightly against the chest. "Come on, not now. I had a vision. Of Bella. With another vampire!"

He knew his wife's emotional outpourings better than his own, so he understood now that this vision did not make his lady happy. Distress, with spikes of fear and worry, lashed out from her. He absorbed all that, as he often did, asking calmly, "Anyone we know?"

"I haven't met him, but I think his name's Alistair? You know I can't actually hear anything in my visions, but that's the name Bella's got on her lips..." Alice's own lips pouted. "They were holding hands, Jasper, and kissing..."

Shock jolted through him and his wife both for an instant. Then, he purposefully pushed it out of his chest and snuggled more securely with his mate. "So, did she find her mate?"

"No, because after that, I see our cousin Kate showing up and Alistair kind of loses his composure."

" _Shit_."

"I _know_."

"Damn, I hope that wasn't an instant romance for our girl, Alice," he murmured, muffling his voice in the short black hair of his beloved.

A subtle shade of mourning floated from Alice then, a feeling of sorrowful endurance. But underlying it all, his wife felt hope, which Jasper somehow understood.

"She'll be coming back to us."

"We can't hold her back if she finds someone else..."

Alice cocked her head, her eyes half-lidded and rapt with a vision before they sprang widely open and she giggled. "Oh. My."

"What?"

Embarrassment, lust and amusement braided themselves thoroughly around the sprite on his lap. "I can't tell you, Mighty Big Brother Warrior."

"I am not your brother."

"You're hers, though."

"Only an in-law and only on paper."

"Still not telling."

Even when he teased her, his own _vision_ coming true with her hair spiking out on the white bear rug and her legs around his hips as he caressed bare skin with his own, pushing strong feelings approaching _orgasmic_ into her body from his own gift and awareness, she wouldn't relent. "Surprises can be good things," she breathed, her voice husky.

"Says the seer who can't be surprised."

"C'mon, handsome. Try me."

And she was surprised by the intensity, if not the actual act. Still, Jasper knew they were both thinking of Bella due to her sheer absence. Sex outside of their room was not something they would do if she were home.

  


_  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you to Katmom for "Bratwyn."


	11. Swear to be Sturdy and Strong

 

**Chapter** **11.** **Swear** **to** **be** **Sturdy** **and** **Strong**

"I swear I should start my own business," Bella called as soon as she shut the door on Jasper's Mustang after reaching home again. "I know you're in there, you two. And Alice, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, well, thank you. I think. Maybe." She was rather torn on this, to be honest. She wanted them to already know what had happened but she didn't want them knowing what she had in her suitcases.

Life could be complicated when one co-habitated with a seer and an empath.

It was early morning, the sun just peeking over the colorful, dying leaves to the east. Having hunted just two days ago, she wasn't thirsty but felt a communal hunting experience, such as she had promised Alice before she left, might not be a bad thing. If the clouds returned. It was Sunday, meaning they all had the day off. She had planned for that.

"You all right, Isabella?" Jasper leaned in the open door, dark blue shirt open to the fragile warmth of sunlight. He came forward to gather up the luggage she had planned on carrying in herself. She let him; he was being a gentleman and it was, she had learned, important to him.

"I guess you heard?"

"Well." He followed her up the stairs to her room. "She saw." Alice was already on Bella's bed, having just replaced the pillowcases.

The elfin face scrunched in remembered sympathy without even a flicker of an eyelash at the luggage. Bella wondered if she knew about _that_ , too, but was just being discreet. "Ah. So, yeah, I'm all right."

"Tell us what happened," Alice urged, pulling her to sit on the bed. Jasper, evidently finding the idea of story time to be worthwhile, dropped gently to the floor, cross-legged.

"You already saw it."

"Not everything, just, ah, a couple of awkward moments..."

Bella kicked her shoes off and drew her knees to her chest, her feet on the old-fashioned Amish quilt that had covered her bed since shortly after she and the Whitlocks had moved here. Her bedroom was a testament, really, to being whom she felt like she had been, before. Simple, unpretentious, not a Cullen, really.

Except that every single thing, from her quilt to the bedside lamp, was of the finest quality. It just _looked_ like it was trying to pretend to be from Target.

"You know about Alistair."

Jasper's brow lifted. "Uh-huh."

With relief perforating her embarrassment, Bella told them what Alistair had said about her. And his temporary solution idea. "And I told him I wanted to get to know him better and we spent, oh, probably a full day just talking in my room, there."

Amusement peaked from Jasper. "Talking?"

"Yes, Empathic Warrior Brother, _talking_." Well, for the first day, both of them gradually drawing physically nearer to one another, testing. There was interest, certainly, but both of them were too skittish, Bella surmised, to allow themselves to feel much more than that.

* * *

He had cursed under his breath in an accent so thick she couldn't decipher the words; indeed, it might have been a term out of date since the American Revolution, for all she knew. When she opened her mouth to ask him to translate, he covered it with his own and the resultant passion had surprised her. To say the least. Kissing worked far more smoothly for them than the uneasy pre-contact rituals.

Hands skimmed over clothing, exploring, carefully learning responses, but only for a short time. Less than an hour, which was nothing in the life of an immortal. The Cullens had another guest arrive at that point. Alistair decided he didn't feel like meeting anyone new, so Bella went down to join Carlisle and Esme in greeting "Cousin Kate," who had oddly enough been shopping in New York City before catching a plane to detour to the Cullens and heading home to her coven.

Of course they had met before, and Kate was nothing but sympathetic over the turn of events in the Cullen family. "And I heard you're with the Whitlocks, now? _With_ them?"

Esme had made a surprised sound, her golden eyes rounded in surprise as Bella smiled self-consciously. "No, not like that."

Kate, her millennium of experience giving her insight and wisdom, winked at the mated pair in the room and then tugged Bella up and, holding her hand, ran her out of the house.

"It sucks that there's no other way of having a private conversation than to run away," Bella called over the wind created by their swift passage over the dry and dying grasses.

Kate laughed. "I thought you might want privacy. With my sisters and I, we never worry about it, but you are young to this life and still very human." Finally, judging them to be far enough away, the blond woman with the electric fingers halted, her face alight with humor. "So! You are living with Jasper and Alice and yet you are not having sex with them."

"What happened to subtlety?" Bella wondered out loud.

"Among this family?"

With a sigh, Bella told Kate that she had the right of it. "Why?"

"Because I have been in the same house when the empath makes love to his mate. I know how it can be," Kate said with humor-laced sympathy. "So I wondered if you were managing it all right. We have all been concerned for you, you know, since you and Edward... You could come live with us..."

"No, no thank you. I appreciate the offer, but I love Alice and Jasper."

"Of course you do. So you take care of things on your own then? Or have you taken a lover?"

"Pardon?"

Kate's laugh was as light and delightful as her physical appearance. "You cannot tell me that you do not try to bring yourself to satisfaction when you share a house with them!"

"Damn it! That's personal!"

Kate's eyes, with their slight exotic slant, widened. Bella noted that she seemed to be having that effect on people, lately. Alistair's secluded life was looking better and better...

"You must be going mad."

"Only a little." _Okay_ _,_ _a_ _lot_ _,_ _but_ _she_ _doesn_ _'_ _t_ _have_ _to_ _know_ _that_ _._

"The humans and their sexual technology might be...awkward...but they have some good toys," Kate said, serious but also smiling. "I can show you them without talking or making any noise, if you are interested."

"Toys?" Bella hissed in a whisper, even though no one else could hear them. "What?"

"To alleviate frustration. There is no shame in bringing oneself _relief_ , Bella. If one is thirsty, one should drink. If one is aroused, one can bring oneself to orgasm. It is meeting a physical need."

Mouth open, Bella just stared at the other woman. "Wow. Never thought about it like that."

Within minutes, they were back in the house, rummaging through Kate's suitcase with absolute silence. Somehow, that made it even more intriguing.

It was with a sense of sexual mischief, then, that Bella returned to her room, where Alistair still waited, a brooding shadow over his features. "Who is Kate?"

"A cousin, of sorts," Bella said. "Do you want to meet her?"

* * *

"And so I introduced them." Bella plunged her hand through her hair in her room, feeling Alice's soothing touch on her back and Jasper's hand on her knee, his own variant of calm sympathy washing over her. At least she hadn't told them about the "rabbit" Kate had given her as a "beginner's" toy. "I should just start a matchmaking business for vampires, you know? Maybe I'm a mate-magnet."

"Oh, Bella, I'm so sorry." Alice leaned her head on Bella's shoulder and managed to surreptitiously rearrange her hair while she did so.

Jasper cocked his head. "So, I'm gonna ask you again. You okay?"

Bella arched her brows at him. "You tell me."

He tapped her knee and rose easily to his feet. Bella's mind flew over Kate's brief comments regarding being in the same house as the empath "while he made love to his mate." _Damned_ _good_ _thing_ _I_ can't _blush_ _now_ , she recollected, wrapping her awareness of her inner shield tightly around her.

With a brief flash of surprise and something else she didn't study long enough to analyze, Jasper smiled. "I think you're fine. Alice told me you promised to go hunting with us when you got back?"

"Yep."

"Tonight," Alice said, moving to stand by her husband's side, their fingers linking automatically.

They left her room and Bella went about getting her traveling clothes laundered and catching up on work before joining the other two in a flurry of window washing.

"I know, call me a pain in the ass or whatever," Jasper had said the very first time he had insisted on this, years ago, "but you know how detailed we see everything. I hate seeing dirty windows. Makes me feel like we're bein' surrounded."

Since then, the three of them made it a goal to have cleaner than clean windows. Inside and out, using ladders and gallons of window cleaner, they endeavored to keep the "eyes of the home" free of dust, streaks and debris.

"You all right up there?" Jasper called to Bella. She was on the top of a ladder, scrubbing at bird droppings on the outside of a dormer window.

"Fine! It's not like I'd get hurt if I fell down anyway."

He laughed. "I know. I'm just enjoying the view," he teased.

"Yeah, because the soles of my sneakers are so visually stimulating." _Hell_ _,_ _if_ _he_ _can_ _dish_ _it_ _out_ _,_ _I_ _will_ _throw_ _it_ _right_ _back_ _._ "Alice likes them, too. Maybe I should get you two matching pairs for Christmas."

From the first floor, Alice poked her head through a window. "Oh, Bella. You have given me such an idea for Christmas shopping!"

"Oh no!" Jasper and Bella said on the same breath.

"Oh yes!" With a shout, she sprang from the window and flashed to Jasper's side, her arms twining around him. She looked up. "Hey, nice view!" she called to Bella.

"Stop it, already! You are just too...too much."

"That's what she said!" Jasper quipped. Alice slapped his stomach and the three of them laughed together, moving to let Bella down the ladder.

* * *

Cold darkness opened up to a brilliant, clear sky that night as they went to hunt. The autumn of 2020 was rapidly, according to the weather gurus, finding itself in the midst of near-record chills. Not that it mattered to the trio of vampires speeding through the falling leaves. Conversation was at a minimum as they focused on finding the heartbeats of animals. With the weather as it was, this might be the last big hunt before freezing temperatures sent some animals far away and others into various states of torpor and hibernation. Bella wanted a black bear. It was officially after early hunting season, so she felt she had given the humans a fair chance.

They kept aware of one another as they hunted. Sometimes, the three of them were entirely separate, meeting at a prearranged clearing or tree when they finished and running back home together. At other times, Jasper and Alice hunted together — and when they did, they often took a little longer, giving Bella time to find a river or stream and clean up if she wished. This evening they were separate, so Bella could only surmise that her best friends and housemates had an evening planned once they got home.

Post-hunt lovemaking, she remembered far too clearly, was amazing.

"I'd like to get home before dawn," she said out loud, waiting by the designated tree.

Jasper's voice reached her through the partially denuded forest. "Impatient woman. I'm coming."

"Me, too!"

"Gotcha, Sprite!" Jasper said as Alice appeared.

Each of them took one of Bella's hands and they took off at a run. "I feel like a kid," Bella told them, leaping over a fallen log. Naturally, they leapt too, but they seemed rather better at it than she was. "You know, the one the others took on for a pity friend?"

"You have got to be kidding me," Alice snapped with a sharp tug on Bella's fingers. "We love you, idiot."

"Because name-calling just means she cares, sugar," Jasper added with a smile in his voice.

They did in fact reach their house in Trumansburg before dawn. Bella didn't have as tight a rein on herself as she had hoped, she realized as Jasper tossed her a questioning look before heading to the other end of the house with Alice.

Meeting a physical need was nothing to be ashamed of, Kate had said. And she was a vampire of vast experience in such matters. _Just_ _because_ _I_ _want_ _to_ _be_ _in_ _love_ _doesn_ _'_ _t_ _mean_ _I_ _can_ _'_ _t_ _..._ _use_ _this_ _..._

And, out came the sex toy, along with antiseptic wipes because some latent need of hers required her to disinfect a "used" item designed for a form of intimate contact even if she was a bacteria-impervious vampire. Locking the door, Bella eyed the gadget in her hand and bit her lip. This could be weird. But it didn't have to be, did it?

* * *

The need, the never-ending _need_ for her man spiraled through Alice after a good hunt. Teasing Bella was part of her plan, sure, but she also wanted to reassure Jasper that she _wanted_ him every single moment of the day. She had known Bella's decision to stay in after tonight's hunt, and she had seen what her dearest friend was going to be doing and Alice thought this was a very good thing.

"Oh, Sprite, what are you up to?" Jasper rasped, his hands moving eagerly over her, removing clothing and replacing it with hands and lips and skin and _him_.

She didn't answer right away, but trailed her fingers down his torso, finding the indentation of skin and muscle and hair that women called a "happy trail." He gasped at the clarity of the sensation, since she also knew how to use her own desire and other emotions to please him. "I want to make you burn," she whispered.

"Oh, sugar, you're doin' that right quick," he murmured, turning over as she maneuvered herself to replace her fingers with her lips and tongue to tease and taste him. "Wait."

"Hm?" Tracing intricate patterns on his obvious arousal, she didn't consider waiting.

"She's still here. Usually she goes and —"

"Not tonight. Shh, just relax and let _go_ , Jas."

She felt the tension, felt his efforts to be _polite_ so that he wouldn't cause their dearest Bella any undue discomfort, but Alice wanted him to let loose, that evening. It would be better for everyone if he did. She _knew_ it. She made love to her man and he responded beautifully. They climbed and peaked and climbed again and, down the long, narrow corridor of their home, music did its best to hide Bella's own ascent.

At length, as Monday morning arrived in shining earnest, Jasper looked down at his mate. "Okay, she's in the shower; what was that about?"

"She was...you know..." Alice bit her lip and touched herself delicately.

A spike of unexpected lust went right through Jasper's midsection at the idea. Then, embarrassed, he frowned a little and buried his face in Alice's hair. "Sorry, that just caught me off-guard, hon."

"Don't be sorry; I kind of liked it."

Stiffening, he blinked before rising to hold her darkening gaze. "Oh?"

"Maybe we could do it again, with everyone paying attention?" Alice suggested.

Disbelief flared quickly, but he put it away. They'd been mated for seven decades and that wasn't going to change. "Having a voyeuristic moment, Mary Alice?"

"Not exactly...but...have you ever thought it might be good...to share?"

He had no words, but the images that sprang to his over-educated, over-experienced mind didn't need any. Neither did Alice.

* * *

  



	12. Such a Beautiful Mess

  


Shopping in New York City before Christmas was mind-blowing, Bella had to admit. Decorations were everywhere, snow felt cleaner, somehow, and everyone smiled more. She caught scents from vampires, too. Vampires she didn't know who were in the Big Apple for reasons of their own. Maybe they were actually shopping as she and the Dynamo were.

Alice really was a force of nature. Fortunately, so many people shopped with her kind of verve that she didn't seem all that different as they hefted bags through the subway system and wove through the streets to charming boutique shops. Bella was kind of enjoying the experience, actually. She usually did, but this year there seemed to be more connection with her best friend. It was Girls' Day Out and she thought maybe it was because of what had happened over the summer.

But that didn't turn out to be precisely the case.

"You know we love you, right?" Alice said at a level that would have been pretty much inaudible to the humans shopping, if they were paying attention.

"What? Of course I know. I love you, too. You and Jasper both."

Alice beamed warmly up at her. "Oh, good. So, can I tell you that the sheet really isn't necessary?"

Bella almost lost her grip on her bags. _What the hell?_ Dropping her eyes to the glass case of Rolex watches in front of her, she replied, "Al? The very fact that you could tell me that confirms that I do in fact need the sheet."

Sprightly laughter caught the attention of the other nearby shoppers, all of whom looked as if they had been given an early Christmas gift.

* * *

It was an internal battle with himself almost every day. If he didn't care so much for her, if he hadn't grown to _care so much_ for her, then it would have been easier to tease her. He could have called down the hall to her, saying, "You don't need to close the door, hon! It doesn't really muffle the vibe!" Or "Honestly, Bella, go ahead and scream if you want. Doesn't bother us at all."

Because it really didn't.

But he didn't say or do anything that he hadn't said or done before because he knew her so well, their Bella. He knew that she would be mortified and resume her prior custom of disappearing into the wilderness when he and Alice made love. He really didn't want that, not because of the additional rush he and his mate experienced, but because for the first time in _years_ , the woman currently living as Bella Brandon was relaxed. And, sometimes, _happy_.

He basked in the peace of her psyche and told himself that was enough. They still spent hours conversing about educational theories and past practices and what could conceivably be brought into modern textbooks. He suggested she pursue her doctorate. She suggested he consider graduate degrees in psychology.

Alice didn't let her off so easily. "Have fun!" she called with soft sweetness down the hall on one occasion. "What, no music tonight?" she asked on another.

And then, Alice _propositioned_ her best friend. Kind of on _his_ behalf. The idea had him instantly hard and breathing heavy in the room he used as an office. He pulled that all inside himself too, because any undue influence would just not feel right, to him. He had to be able to look at himself in the mirror, didn't he?

"It's for Christmas," Alice was saying softly. Since he was corralling his own emotions so stringently, he did not try to monitor those of his mate or his best friend. "For Jas. Look, you know he feels all of what you're feeling when you, um, stay inside with us, right?"

"Al!"

"Bell!"

"Yes, I know. Do we have to talk about it?"

"Well, I've noticed you haven't actually stopped or anything."

"No, but I'm still using the sheet!" They laughed quietly together and Jasper wasn't even pretending to read the essays from the pre-break exams. "So, okay, what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking about us being all in the same room. During, you know..." Jasper could only imagine what little finger-play his wife was up to, to fill in the blanks. He blew out a very soft breath. "The intensity would be increased for Jas, that way. And it'd be...wow. Such a gift from you, Bella."

"I can't let him see me! I try hard to pretend you can't see me, either, you know."

"I'll blindfold him." Downstairs, Jasper smiled and had to palm himself, the ache was so insistent at the word _blindfold_. Oh, they did have some toys of their own, yes they did.

Bella made an exasperated sound and he heard her pacing overhead. "Alice! Vampire? How the hell do you blindfold a vampire effectively?"

 _Wafer-thin steel discs in the blindfold, that's how_. Jasper made them himself and knew they were extremely effective.

"He put metal in them, Bella. No light, no sight. Plus, he'll close his eyes. I promise."

"I have to think about it," Bella said slowly.

Below, Jasper almost groaned with his imagination and memory combined. He had focused on her feelings for one of their climaxes the last time and the strength of it had been, well, inspirational, to say the least. Alice had surely appreciated it, too.

 _Alice. That little minx._ She had been planning this for quite some time, clearly.

"Well you think about it and let us know. I would want you to be as comfortable as possible, sweetie. We could all come to your room, so you could be in your bed — with your sheets! — and pillows and anything. If you want to stay dressed too, that's okay. I just know that the nearer the, um, proximity to the stimulus, the better it is. The more intense."

"Your bed," Bella murmured. "Bigger."

At that point, Jasper had to grind his teeth together to keep his groan from going audible. His hand was busy enough. _Just enough to ease the tension,_ he thought. He wondered, then, if Alice was interested in Bella like _that_. Was she upstairs in the same room, wanting to ease her own pressure...?

In seventy years with her, it was never a discussion they had had.

He heard his wife's light steps leave Bella's room above. Then to the stairs. Then to find him.

"I knew you were listening," she murmured.

He flashed her a grin. "You kept me waiting," he retorted, flinging back a line at her that had indeed been recycled between them over the years.

She eyed him up and down, slowly. "I see..."

"Do you think she will?" he asked as Alice hiked up her smooth wool office skirt, leaving on the thigh-high stockings and heels. "Damn," he said in appreciation.

"See? You? Probably not...but... I want to."

So she did.

* * *

Christmas Eve found them in their own little world. New Years' Eve, they were expecting Carlisle and Esme, Emmett and Rosalie, but not Edward and Bronwyn. _They_ were spending Christmas in Paris.

Bella thought that was very Edwardian.

But the Whitlocks would ready the house for guests on Boxing Day, it had been decided. Christmas Eve, Bella knew she had to make a choice. A few of them, really.

 _Do I want to do this? Well, yes, yes I do. But it feels...kinky. So? It's not like you're going to break up a mated pair. It's not as if you're forcing your way into their relationship. They_ invited _you. Well, she did, but he is completely aware of the invite, for sure._

This, she knew, because since Alice had told her what she wanted for Christmas? Jasper had been acting affectionately flirtatious with her. Nothing intrusive, but winks on his way down the hall. An extra kiss pressed to the top of her head — the familiar gesture, just lasting a tad longer than had been, well, _familiar_. And, too, her housemates had been having sex outside of the bedroom.

While she was home.

That was different. More open. Less reserved. More of an invitation...

So on Christmas Eve, Bella gathered every ounce of courage she had ever possessed. _Maybe this will be good for them, they instigated it, and Alice has probably already seen it going well without hurting anyone so —_

"Alice?" she called down the hall.

"Yes?"

"Is he blindfolded yet?"

A pair of laughs, harmonious in their low and high notes, was a good present for Christmas Eve. Wearing a soft black nightshirt that had a pocket big enough for her toy — its main draw as nightwear for the evening — she drew a deep breath and walked at human speed down the hardwood floor of the hall. As she did so, she heard low chuckles, the sounds of a heavy piece of what sounded like silk, and the straightening of sheets.

"There you are," Jasper said, a grin below the blindfold that was as bright as the Christmas Star.

Alice tousled his honey-blond hair and bounced off the bed, coming to her with a toned-down smile. "I'm so glad. I've got you your own sheet, just here on the end, okay? Totally private."

Some of Bella's anxiety eased at this. She had not wanted to feel the further intimacy of bodies under covers. This way, it really would be more like being on her own, just _closer_.

She pointed at the light on the nightstand and Alice nodded. In a moment, the room was shadowed save for the starlight coming through the sheers on the window above the enormous, king-sized bed. Alice joined Jasper under the sheets up near the steel, lattice-work headboard while Bella slid as quickly as vampirically possible into the folded one at their feet.

"Now what?" she wondered.

Jasper's laugh sounded excited but also a bit nervous, which made Bella feel better about everything. "Relax, sugar. Close your eyes and pretend it's last week, if you want." She obeyed and he continued, moving under the bedclothes, she could tell. "This isn't something we've done, either. I can feel your nervousness, hon, and I don't blame you. But I do thank you. We'll get through this."

Alice snorted delicately. "We'll do more than that! If you are going to just sit there and talk, Major, maybe I..."

Bella kept her eyes closed, but she grinned at the sounds made by an energetic sprite of a woman pushing her man to the mattress. Fabric slid, Bella heard the soft glide of fingertips on skin and soon, Jasper's gift was pulsing in the room. It was stronger, now that she was closer. Briefly, she wondered if the Cullens had ever taken advantage of this as a group, when they "went camping."

Initially, she was stiff, and her toy stayed in her pocket. But as Jasper got to her the way Alice was getting to him, she hitched the fabric up and slid out her rabbit. And wished she had a pillow to muffle the buzzing sound.

Unsurprisingly, Alice threw a pillow at her and, in so doing, did something that had Jasper gasping and putting out breath-stealing sex vibes.

Desire swirled through Bella's center, down between her hips, making her want and _need_. No music, so she imagined some in her mind while also hearing Jasper flipping Alice over to press blinded kisses to his wife before making suckling sounds on her body.

Moans interspersed smaller sounds of pleasure and Bella finally had to give in. She turned on the toy and was gratified beyond measure when the other two in the room didn't even pause in their lovemaking. Bella dared to open her eyes then, just in time to see Jasper kick off the sheet covering himself and Alice as he managed some acrobatic maneuver that brought most of Alice's small body right off the bed.

Slamming her eyes shut, Bella could not erase the sight from her mind. The image of such marble perfection, combined with the stimulation from her toy and the repeated waves of lust and love and building sexual need had her climbing the walls...under her sheet.

Jasper roared his pleasure. The sudden increase in sound and desire compelled Bella to reach out and grab on to the first thing she could to anchor herself.

It was Jasper's ankle. And when she touched it, she felt such a burst of lust from him that it drove her right over the edge, so that she climaxed with a cry of her own. Which reverberated back to him and Alice and the cycle seemed almost too intense.

How many times did she come before she finally found the presence of mind to slide her hand from Jasper's skin?

Bella turned off her toy immediately, trying to jam it into her pocket and disappear likewise. But she couldn't.

"Hey, hey, hey there, sugar, don't you even start that," Jasper said, apparently shifting gears faster than seemed feasible to rip off his blindfold and sit in front of her, no sex-vibe emanating at all. Alice dashed behind her, pulling her so that they were practically spooning, she and her best sister-friend, as Jasper held her gaze — and her face — from the front. "That was the most amazing gift, Isabella. I will not allow you to get all ashamed and worried, you hear me?"

"Merry Christmas," was all she could muster in reply.

"Merry Christmas," he said and then, surprising her even further, he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. Light and sweet as Alice hugged her and kissed the back of her head.

Bella felt something within her shift and change and break and ache as she pressed her own lips first to Jasper's and then, with an awkward turn, to Alice's temple.

"I'm, um, gonna go take a shower," she said in a rush before slipping out from the middle of the Bella-sandwich and running down the hall.

"Let her go, Alice," Jasper told his wife. "Keep your eyes on me for a bit, huh? Let her regroup."

Though it clearly went against the grain, Alice did as he asked and he whisked her up to their shower, where he was privately relieved to find that though their time with Bella had been its own brand of earth-moving, he still felt superlatively bound to his mate.

Neither of them seemed particularly interested in "dessert" in the shower, but he wallowed in Alice's peaceful, holiday joy and that charming, particular form of _smug_ that defined his wife when she had orchestrated something to her great satisfaction. He did so enjoy seeing her happy. But she was becoming frustrated as they finished a mutual, intimate clean-up in the shower so he smiled and smacked her on the ass as she left the bathroom.

"Bella? You left something in our room!" she called, half-playfully, half-concerned.

There was no answer and Jasper sent out his gift, trying to dig past the shield Bella sometimes wrapped herself in, to find out what was wrong.

But there was nothing except a flare of panic from her room. He was there in a flash. The room was neat, but on the middle of the bed was Bella's phone. The closet door was open and a pair of shoes had fallen to the floor.

Her emotional signature was nowhere to be felt.

Alice would have been weeping if she could. "Jas! She left us!"

* * *

  



	13. How it May Come Tumbling Down

**  
**

_Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. I can't screw this up. Them up. What was I thinking? No, no, no._

Bella never really figured on going nomad. Not really. Oh, sure, she had entertained the idea very briefly when Randall asked, and she was very glad Jasper had taken the time to teach her how to take care of herself should she need to know, but she had never truly considered living on her own, on her feet, out in the world. Alone.

Until she felt like she was actually _falling in love_ with her two best friends. In different ways, but still. It was beyond wrong. Beyond awful. Beyond a detestable way to pay back their love and care for her, falling for them in a romantic way.

She had to leave. She could get over love. She had done it before. In less than the time it took for Jasper to turn on their shower, Bella was in her room, pulling on jeans and a shirt and shoving a change of clothes and her laptop into a backpack. She also remembered her battery charger, but she did not take her phone. She was going nomad. Incommunicado by phone. She would be able to work on her computer and log in as Randall had done, at a public access point. And she had her bank cards and plenty of financial resources, so really, she was in much better shape than many nomads.

Maybe if she focused on the details, the gaping chasm in her chest, the one dirtied with the ideas of "infidelity" and "coveting" and so on, would stop aching so much.

But she doubted it.

Christmas came and went. She hunted on the day she and Jasper and Alice were to have been preparing the house for company. 2020 met 2021 while she was at the Canadian border, trying to find a quasi-permanent base to spend more than a day. How did nomads do it? Continuing to bury herself in the details during the days, she found her mind wandering at night, when she would be on the move, racing over snow that would be hard-packed or newly fallen, depending on the day's weather.

 _I should call_ them _. I should find a public phone at a hotel or something and call the Cullens. Esme and Carlisle will be there, and Emmett. And Rosalie. I should._

But she didn't. Instead, her traitorously perfect recall kept her focus on Jasper and Alice and how their relationship had deepened over the years. They were friends, good friends, family, and she was treating them like nothing, right now.

Only her mind would say differently, because her thoughts never truly left them.

_Damned multitasking vampire brain!_

For days, she sat in an evergreen, enveloped in the cold-accented scent of pine, and examined her feelings. What did she feel?

Well, Edward was pretty much not an issue, but she examined her heart there anyway. They had been married for less than ten years before he met Bronwyn. Bronwyn. Defensive girl, but Bella didn't blame her. Vampire mate-bond and everything. Jasper could go crazy over someone looking at Alice the wrong way. Alice had been known to flare up when someone flirted with Jasper. It was instinct.

She had loved Edward but that feeling just wasn't there, anymore. Now, she had him in her heart as "her first" for so many things. Her sire, too, but that wasn't a relationship he had stressed with her so she tended to downplay it. She had looked to Carlisle as her father and as a sire, in many ways. Edward was...a good memory that would be with her always. Edward was innocence, laughing, tension and grace and beauty. But not someone she would likely choose to be with, now.

Because she didn't feel full of innocence and laughter anymore. Instead, she was filled with remorse and confusion and a tangle of other emotions and feelings that she had to recognize and register and put away. She cared too much for Jasper and Alice to shove her unfortunate (and, sadly, highly evident) emotions into their relationship.

She missed being in love. Was that what this was? Just a need to fill an empty place within herself? So she latched on to the two people for whom she cared the most in the world? And stirred in serious sex-vibes and orgasms?

_Because, let's face it, Isabella, you never felt quite that way before. It was good and beautiful and hot with Edward, but that whole cyclic thing? Wow._

Being alone would help her get over what she felt. Of course it would. She would experience new things while maintaining her textbook employment. She might make new friends — something she could probably really benefit from — and would certainly see new sights.

Maybe she would buy a camera and send pictures to Alice and Jasper. Because they were her friends. And she hoped they didn't hate her, now.

* * *

Jasper cupped Alice's face in his hands, pressing his forehead to hers. "It's my fault. I should have reined it in better. Something."

She tried to brace him up with her love, pushing it to him in all its fullness as she said, "Remember what you said to her? No shame, no guilt here. No feeling bad. It was a good thing, what we did." _It had to be._ "I never saw this happening."

Jasper fell back on the sofa, the day that the rest of the family was due to arrive. "What the hell _did_ you see then, Mary Alice? She'd been happy and peaceful and now she's gone!"

"I saw us all together," Alice confessed, curling up on her mate's lap, tucking her head under his chin. "Snuggling under one blanket. Happy."

He nuzzled her head. "I love that you wanted that for her."

"For all of us. She's part of us now, you know."

"Is that what this is?" he wondered, sounding utterly bereft. She felt it when he let the strict control of his power loose. Pain, loss, despair, love, worry, more love, the love that she knew was hers alone... They poured out of him as he clutched her tightly against his chest for fully thirty-three minutes without breathing. It hurt to breathe.

"I love you, so much," she reminded her man.

"I love you, too. Always, Alice."

And she knew that that would be enough, should the unthinkable happen and Bella stayed away.

So, when Emmett and Rosalie arrived, she did her best to sound confident. Jasper locked his deepest cares within himself and played host, trying to ignore the elephant in the room until Emmett brought it up.

Looking concerned, the man-mountain strode with powerful grace through the house's long, straight halls and poked in different rooms. Finally, he called, "Where's Bella?"

Rosalie grimaced, confronting her siblings with a flat look. "Well? Where'd she go?"

"She went nomad. We think," Jasper answered quietly.

"She did what?" roared Emmett, charging back into the living room like an angry bear in spring. "What the hell did you do to her?"

"Nothing!" Jasper leapt to his feet to meet Emmett's ire head-on. Shoulders straight, legs in a fighter's stance, he knew his brother had reason to be angry, but Jasper could not handle any more of that emotion. Not just at the moment. "She's an independent woman, Emmett. Not your baby sister. Not anymore."

"She's been talking about going nomad for a couple of years," Alice added, remaining seated so as to halt an escalation of tension. In her mind, she could see ugly words being thrown about, a fight, and the emotional fallout from it all could linger for years. Worse than the fabled nuclear winter. "I think she just needed to get away, all of a sudden." No mention of how she and Jasper felt kind of broken. No discussion of the guilt she knew she and her mate both suffered since Bella had left.

Emmett would just try to go find her and Rose would try to stop him ("Look, it's not like she was really a member of the family," the beauty would say.) and that would cause marital troubles.

Fortunately, further confrontation was halted with the arrival of Carlisle and Esme.

"Happy New Year," Esme trilled, sounding so excited to see them together. Hugs were passed around and she stood at last with her arms open. "Bella?"

"She's gone," Emmett spat. "Went nomad."

Jasper felt Carlisle's surprise, but the older vampire quickly covered it with a real interest and confidence. "That might prove very educational for her, you know. She's never truly lived on her own. I know many nomads on this continent as well as in Europe. Those I can reach, I'll notify. Then she might find friends along the way."

The empath felt a stirring of hope within himself, and it came from Alice as well as she wrapped one arm around his waist. "That would be so good!" his Sprite burbled, a smile on her face for the first time in days.

Carlisle smiled a little, clearly taken aback at the emotional outpouring. "Indeed. I'll attend to that immediately, if I may use your computer?" Alice was leading the way to Jasper's office when Carlisle asked, "Does Bella have her computer with her?"

"Yeah. But we haven't heard from her yet."

"Did she indicate she would be in contact? Should I try?"

"Can't hurt, right?"

"Alice?" Carlisle placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "What am I missing?"

She compressed her lips tightly together before answering. "I feel like it's my fault she left, Carlisle."

"Sweetheart." He encircled her shoulders with one arm. "Bella's a stubborn woman. That's never changed. If she decides something, she'll do it. It cannot possibly be your fault."

"I feel like I failed her."

"No, my dear. You provided her a safe haven while she needed one. Now, maybe she just needs to spread her wings, eh?"

"She's not spreading her wings, Carlisle. She's sitting on a branch with snow piling up in the corners of her elbows. She hasn't moved, in my vision, for days." Alice curled into Carlisle's shoulder and let a shaking, dry sob explode over him.

The visit went on about as long as planned; that is to say, a few days. There was one group hunt, but they all felt it wasn't quite right without the missing members of their family: Edward, Bronwyn and Bella, whose absence resounded more painfully than the transient goodness of their gathering.

Rosalie took Jasper aside just before they left. He went willingly, but was wary all the same. "What is it, Rose?" She didn't have much of an emotional vibration at all, mostly boredom with some irritation interspersed like stains on a tablecloth.

"I just wondered what was up with you. I mean, Alice and Bella, yes. They were 'besties,'" his sister said sarcastically, making quotation marks with her fingers. "But you? You're wracked over this. Is Alice's emotional thing so strong? Bella's a nice girl, but she's just your sister-in-law."

Jasper marshaled his inner military man and nodded succinctly. "Once, Rose, I was partly responsible for her life falling apart. We all abandoned her, then. She forgave us because she's that kind of woman, but we did abandon her. This time, I was determined to make sure she never felt alone or abandoned after Edward found his mate. The fact that she left could mean I did my job."

"Right!"

"Or it could signify that she was more broken inside than I could fathom, which makes me feel like a failure. So yeah, I'm kind of _wracked_ , as you say, about it. And it's killing Alice, which certainly doesn't help."

Rosalie carried on some sort of internal debate with herself before saying, "Hang in there, Jas. She'll turn up."

"Eventually."

"Yeah."

* * *

_Subject: I am so sorry!_

_Dear Jasper & Alice,_

_Hey. I'm fine. Honest. Just had to think. A lot. I know I had to have upset you and I am really sorry about that. I'm glad you have each other. I'll be home when I can. When I can tell you what's been going on in my head without sounding like an idiot, anyway._

_I love you guys._

_Bella_

* * *

**_  
_ **


	14. Still I'm Searching

**  
**

_Bella,_

_We miss you and yes, we were upset, but we just hope_ _ we _ _didn't upset_ _ you _ _, you know? I was so happy to get your note. Jasper was relieved, too._

_Look, we're here whenever you need to talk. Buy a throw-away phone if you want. We miss you. But mostly, be safe. And come back to us as soon as you can, okay?_

_Love you,_

_Alice_

* * *

Running through the night, Bella scented some scattered deer in the midst of a mostly-denuded forest. Tempering her thirst, she still decided to feed from two, since their numbers were more plentiful here than they might be elsewhere. After her hunt, her first thought was to get home. She almost, for the briefest instant, called for Alice.

Which was really when it hit her, there by herself in the middle of the woods. She was _alone_. She was a _nomad_. She had no place to go that was home, save where there was love that hurt her heart and shattered her mind or where there were too many reminders of old joys that would taint everything.

She collapsed on the snowy ground, not even retrieving her pack from where she had hung it on a high branch of a tree.

* * *

_Jasper,_

_I had a bad day. I missed you. My immaturity is apparently endless, but I wanted you to know. You said you felt, once, like maybe you were turning into a "coven leader." I think of you as ours. Be strong for Alice like you always are and give her a hug from me._

_Do you remember those matching sneakers I promised you for Christmas? I bought them for you. They're in my closet in the box marked "That's What She Said."_

_I miss you._

_Bella_

* * *

Was she going to see the sights or wasn't she? Bella decided that wallowing in her confusion and hopeless feelings wasn't getting her anywhere, so she would need a project. She would visit national monuments. Her first destination, she decided, would be Washington D.C. Running at night, avoiding direct sunshine were adventures as she passed through New York and Pennsylvania into Maryland.

She dodged sunlight in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, walked at a slow human pace to the Washington Monument, visited the Korean War Memorial — which was eerie, with the stone soldiers who sometimes looked like frozen vampires from another era.

The bright light grew persistent, so she eventually found a Wi-Fi hotspot indoors and away from a window. It was a coffee shop, and everyone was in there trying to get out of the wintry weather. It was in this hotbed of humanity that she smelled him.

A vampire for real.

He caught her eye across the crowded shop as if they were in some old movie on the Lifetime Channel. He was rangy, about as tall as Edward, she judged, and had long, sandy hair that he had tied back with a leather thong. He wore sunglasses, but a lightning-fast move in her direction showed her that his eyes were the dark, thirsty burgundy of the human-hunter. His clothes were young-adult casual for winter, and he mimed blowing on his hands.

Inside, no one noticed that his breath didn't steam.

He wouldn't hunt in someplace so crowded, and Bella didn't want to know whom he had chosen as a victim anyway. Would it be that dark-haired woman who was reading from a Hebrew website on her laptop? Or the girl with the huge mug of cappuccino and a long, gray scarf being knitted into being? Or perhaps the other vampire would want to drink from the man who hadn't stopped talking once on the ear-piece of a phone since he entered the shop?

She resolutely ignored the rest of the patrons as best she could to check her work email and send in the latest revised chapter of a high school AP Biology text.

A slew of people left while she was so occupied. Before a new batch came in, the distinctive scent of the vampire approached her and, nudging on the steel chair on the other side of the small table Bella had commandeered, he waited for her to acknowledge him.

She nodded so that he sat down, the slow speed of humanity ebbing and flowing around them while the marble immortals paid them no heed. "Hello?" she began. How did nomads greet one another?

He smiled a little and leaned back in the chair. "Golden eyes, eh? I know one of us with eyes like that. Are you acquainted with Carlisle Cullen?"

In spite of her discomfort, Bella had to laugh softly. "Out of all the others I could have met, I ran into someone that knows the family. It's like I can't get away."

"So you _do_ know him? He and I are old friends, if that means anything," the stranger said, relaxed and easy. "I'm Garrett."

"Bella. And yes. I suppose you could say he was my father-in-law. He's a fine man."

"Father-in-law?" Garrett sat up and leaned forward. "I remember he had a growing coven."

"I was Edward's wife. Edward was his first-created." She got that out without wincing, internally or externally, and Bella found that to be a huge plus.

"Are you here with Carlisle and his coven? I haven't seen him in quite some time and would welcome the chance to meet with him."

She shook her head and closed her computer. "No. I've recently decided to try...to try things on my own. I've never done so, before."

His grin flashed a bit too white to blend in. "Well done. I like an independent woman. Come, let's get out of here and get better acquainted. Acting like one of _them_ too long makes me twitch," he confided with a quick jerk of his thumbs toward the people that surrounded them.

* * *

_Bella,_

_I'm so sorry, hon, that you had a hard day. I know how that can be, out there on your own. I wish you could have talked to me - to us - before you hied off like you did, but that's all right. We're here for you, always._

_And if you think you need to stay out for a long time, let me know. If you say I'm the leader of the coven (that's still making me want to scratch my head) then I need to know to have a place for you when we have to move on. Because we will, soon enough._

_Take care of yourself. We love you and miss you._

_Jasper_

* * *

"Since you're of Carlisle's persuasion, you might not want to join me on my hunt," Garrett said politely as his gaze swept the busy mass of people who were out and about in the nation's capital. "But hunt I must. Is there a place we can meet after dark?"

The memories of meeting up with Jasper and Alice made her sigh inside, but Bella thought that they could perhaps meet near a certain diner she had seen that was attached to a Spy Museum tourist attraction. She told him about it and added, "Since they have 'spy stuff' there, your wearing sunglasses won't stand out."

He laughed. "Excellent. Look for me after dark."

She continued to look around, and was gratified when, as she took the occasional picture to send to Carlisle and Esme, and Jasper and Alice, people offered to take pictures of her, too. It was an unusual thing, maybe, but she didn't have too many pictures of herself since she had been changed.

At length, Garrett returned, eyes in a pair of cheap black sunglasses in the darkness. "Bella," he called.

"Garrett. Well, where do we go?"

He was careful not to touch her, but she felt as if he were watching out for her nevertheless as they walked through the emptying streets. "Do you have a room in a hotel?"

"No," she said, feeling a little foolish. "I thought that, if I were going to experience life as a nomad, I should try to go as close to unencumbered as I could."

"With a computer," he teased.

She shrugged. "I have to work."

"Why?"

And so they began a conversation that lasted while he smoothly got them out of town and into a more lonesome area. Her wishes for security and freedom, her desire for purpose in her day to day life. His explanation of what "unencumbered" felt like to him.

They came to a rest in the dark shadow cast by a moon over a rock in rural Maryland. Garrett sat cross-legged in front of her while she leaned on the cold stone. The strong moonlight glinted off his features in a way that might have passed for a facial treatment by human eyes, but she could see the tiny refractions of moonlight on his intelligent forehead and strong cheekbones.

"You see, Bella, when you are without a coven, you are beholden to no one and nothing save your own free will. I don't take issue with those who align themselves with others, so long as they don't impose their will on me."

"And I bet no one tries to set you up with anyone, either," she muttered, knowing he'd hear but also thinking with annoyance on the extended Cullen family's social interferences.

He laughed and leaned back so that his legs stretched out long and lean before him. "No. Though some of our kind do find their mates while they're running alone." With a mischievous and experienced grin, he asked, "Is that what you're really doing, Bella? Looking for your mate?"

"Well, since we're being all candid," she said with a snort, "maybe I am. I don't know, to be honest."

"Honesty is good among immortals. Eternity is a long time to keep track of lies."

At that, Bella had to laugh thinking of the sheer volume of falsifications that most of the vampires she knew lived with on a daily basis. However, their circumstances and the present one in the conversation with Garrett were very different. "It is indeed."

"Well then. I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea," he remarked with half a smile.

"No... Mating is prevalent in many different species," she said, her thoughts angling on an obscure tangent to the topic of her formal education. "Mating for life, that is," she added, embarrassed as Garrett angled his brow with playful suggestion. "My husband, Edward, and I loved each other, but we... We were not mates."

"And he found his," Garrett guessed shrewdly, without a drop of sympathy or pity. Which was kind of refreshing.

"Yeah."

He held out his hand to her, a small smile tilting his lips. She took it. "You still haven't found yours," he said after a moment.

"No."

Still, he shifted himself to lean his back against the boulder beside her and held her hand. She wondered if even an immortal with as much self-confidence as he had just needed to hold hands, once in a while.

She didn't ask.

* * *

"You know, sex without a mate-bond is not a bad thing," Garrett opined while borrowing her laptop to send an email to someone. She did not pry. He had been her escort and her friend and she didn't spy on his correspondence.

"I didn't say it was," Bella retorted, taking her clothing — a couple of new tops and a newer pair of jeans as well as a change of footwear — out of her rather-larger knapsack. "I'm just not accustomed to just, well." — How had Kate put it? Bluntly, that was how! — "Relieving frustrations _with_ someone."

He nodded, murmured that Carlisle's coven was a singular bunch of vampires, and continued typing on her keyboard. For a man she had learned had been changed around 1780, he did remarkably well with technology.

"You're getting ready to return to Carlisle, then?" he asked after they left the small internet café they had found in Pennsylvania. He wrapped his hand around hers and she walked with him. They had known one another for about three weeks and it was entirely comfortable for her.

"No. I'm going home, though. To Jasper and Alice."

"You told me they were in the coven before, but left for a time."

She nodded. "Yeah, and we have all been living together since, well, since Edward found his mate."

"And you're alone, living with the mated pair? That doesn't often last long among nomads. Usually, the single one gets too frustrated and leaves." Then, he threw back his head and laughed, causing not a few heads to turn in admiration at his attractive exuberance. "So that's what happened with you. And yet you'll return?"

He eyed her closely without missing a step as she bit her lip and looked away. "Yes. I miss them."

They walked together for the rest of the night, not needing sleep. As neither needed to hunt, they spoke lightly of his plans for the spring. At length, they came to the northern border of the Susquehannock State Forest. "Here's their Highway 49," Garrett told her without preamble. "If you run beside it and do not veer far away, you can be in Trumansburg before morning."

Amazed and humbled, Bella impulsively turned to embrace this man who had been her undemanding friend and companion for weeks. "I don't know what to say," she said against his chest.

He passed one hand lightly over her hair. "Say farewell. Say you'll send my regards to Carlisle and his mate. And say you will write to me with your computer."

"All of that and my thanks, Garrett. I don't know what I would have done without you."

He grinned, intuition flashing in his eyes. "You would have gone home much sooner."

She acknowledged that he was likely correct before turning resolutely from him and, marking the path of the highway, running into the night.

* * *

_Alice,_

_Hi! So you'll see some pictures as attachments. They're legit, honest. I wanted to share where I've been, lately._

_I met a nomad named Garrett who knows Carlisle. I just heard from Carlisle and he confirmed the acquaintance and that was all kinds of weird, let me tell you. Garrett's been great, very helpful, and has been willing to explain how nomadic life works. Also, he took several of the pics attached._

_It's been a month that I've been gone. I think I'm ready to come home. I think maybe I can, now._

_Just please don't move without me?_

_Love,_

_Bella_

* * *

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	15. Jump Start My Kaleidoscope Heart

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_A kaleidoscope is composed of several mirrors attached together, reflecting the same image in different ways_.

* * *

"Edward. How's Paris?" Alice tried gamely to distract her brother, though she knew it wouldn't work.

His voice was low and deadly. "What did you two do to her to make her run away? You _know_ how dangerous it is out there, Alice."

Remembering what Jasper had said to Emmett, Alice huffed into the phone. "She's an independent woman, Edward. Not your wife. Not anymore. She's not a child."

"What did you do to make her run?"

"It was her choice!" Alice all but shouted, needing to impress this upon him. Besides, telling Edward that she thought it had something to do with a really amazing quasi-sexual experience would probably not be in anyone's best interest. That nuclear winter emotional fallout possibility for the family was still out there. "And how did you know she left, anyway?"

"Carlisle. _Someone_ is concerned about Bella, even if you're not," Edward growled. "I cannot believe you didn't bring her home!"

Fury and exasperation coiled within Alice's breast. She managed _not_ to throw the phone. "She's not a child," she said again, trying to speak calmly, though her nerves were frayed. Edward was her favorite brother and she hated knowing he was disappointed in her. "Bella made a choice to go nomad. She's been talking about it since you found Bronwyn."

 _That'll shut him up_. She could almost feel him stewing, across the ocean.

"Alice. I thought you were taking care of her."

"Edward. She was with us for four years. Do you think she's still in mourning over you?" Remembering their shared time on Christmas Eve, Alice smiled a little. "She's not the girl you married anymore, you know. She's grown up. She's had to. She's had years to put her heartache away. I think she has. She was just needing — needing more than we could give her." That they hadn't been enough hurt, but Alice tried to understand.

She could hear Edward grinding his teeth through the sensitive speaker on his phone. "Is she involved with the nomad Carlisle mentioned? His old friend?"

"I don't know. But she's safe. I've seen it."

A long pause ended with a sigh that sounded depleted of all resources. "All right. I feel responsible too, you know."

"I know," Alice said. Because she did. "Taking responsibility for things is one of your defining characteristics. It's also one of hers."

"Yes. Call me?" A plea.

"When we know, you'll know."

"Thank you, Alice."

* * *

"So wait. You called Carlisle about this guy?"

Jasper offered his wife a nod-and-shrug combo with a vibe of "What the hell else could I do?" as they waited distractedly in the house. It was almost as if the anticipation were a predator itself, Jasper thought. Prowling, waiting to catch them up in a relaxed situation. It had been preying on them since Christmas, this sneaky wildcat that wanted to harass and scratch and tear at him and Alice.

He still didn't know why Bella had left, and he really wanted to know so they could hopefully keep her from running off in a panic again. She was young to this life, really, and had lived such a sheltered existence compared to most nomads. So many unthinkable things could have happened, even to a nearly-indestructible immortal. Alice had kept an almost constant visionary eye open for their Bella, but for the first week or so, that hadn't done any good at all.

Bella kind of went stagnant in Alice's visions, and Jasper had almost lost his mind one night, terrified she'd been hurt or somehow waylaid by someone...for some nefarious purpose.

Then, she had made the decision to go sightseeing, of all things, and Alice had shouted, "Yes!" at the top of her lungs before dancing around the entire house, fist-pumping and whisking him about with her eyes dancing and bright.

For the return of his wife's joy, he owed Garrett the nomad.

"Tell me, already!" Jasper had insisted.

"He's with her and —"

Jasper picked her up. It helped to close her mouth on occasion. " _With_ her with her, or just with her?"

She giggled. "What is this, high school? He's her companion."

"What, no sex?"

A strange flaring of emotion burst from her. Lust, irritation, _agape, phileo, eros*_ — getting all three identified was a neat trick in a burst like that — despair and elation. Internally, he reeled. "What?"

"No. I've seen them do it in one vision, because it was a decision one of them made, but then someone changed their mind. No sex."

Something inside of him was quite satisfied to know that. He didn't even give a conscious thought to the buzzing toy Bella had left behind when she left. Alice had cleaned _that_ up and put it in Bella's nightstand.

"Well. Good. She doesn't need to have her head turned around."

"No. But he's been good for her, Jas. They talk. And I've seen him warning others away from her, but she didn't know it. He's kind of been keeping an eye on her. Maybe as a favor to Carlisle, I don't know."

"Maybe, Alice, because she's a nice person."

A bright, fanciful smile. "Maybe!" She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him with verve and intent and, for the first time in a while, they made exuberant love. Right there on the bear rug.

That had been weeks ago. Tonight, this morning, due to some heavy concentration on the part of Mary Alice Brandon Whitlock, they were waiting for their Bella to come home.

And Jasper wanted to straighten something out with his wife.

"Mary Alice."

"What," she wondered absently, shifting anxiously from window to window as if she were human and not a vampire who had seen the dawn arrival of their missing Bella.

Remaining seated so as to keep his calm, he made a request. "I don't think we should do that sharing-the-bed thing with her again."

"You liked it," Alice answered, as if this were a conversation they had had several times. Actually it had been only twice, but she had likely seen it in different incarnations more often than that. It was something he had grown accustomed to in the many decades of their life together.

"Uh, yeah. I did. A lot," he acknowledged again. "But if that's what triggered her bolting, I would rather do almost anything else than have her panic again."

"I want her to be happy, Jas..." Turning, she finally quit pacing and stood so that she shone beautifully white against the darkness outside the window. "I love her." She closed her eyes and pushed out a wave of emotion that was a lot like she had shown him weeks ago. He held his arm out and she came to him with her eyes shadowed. "I don't understand it, but I do."

As she curled on his lap, Jasper dug deep within himself for the wisdom his century and a half as an empath brought him. "I love you," he said first, knowing it would be true until his last moment. "You love me," he stated next, because he knew _that_ like he knew his own name. "We're mates. That isn't going to change."

Clinging to him, she nodded. "I know. So what's wrong with my heart, Jas?"

"Nothin', sugar. Not a damned thing." He inhaled quickly and asked, low and slow: "Do you want to make love to her?" He had caught _eros_ in her feelings, after all. He was prepared for that, and he knew very privately that the image of Alice and Bella _together_ was not one he was averse to, at all. He thought it'd never work. Bella just wasn't that type of girl.

Neither, apparently, was Alice. She drew back and looked at him very seriously. "No. It's not like that, exactly." She pursed her lips and thought almost hard enough for him to hear. "I think she's beautiful," Alice whispered first, her voice like satin over a warm wooden bowl. "I love her heart and her mind and her sense of humor. I – I've appreciated her during sex. Like, like I wanted her to _be_ there, holding my hand and loving with me, but not loving me. Like that." An ache spiraled out from her chest and he drew her firmly back against himself. "What _is_ that?"

"Love, Alice. Just a very special, unique and sharing kind of love. I think you're amazing." He kissed her then, appreciating the fantastic woman in his arms and wondering how all of this was going to affect Bella when she came home.

For himself, it was different. He didn't need to parse out his own emotions; he had just had to let them settle in so he could control them. It had always been the way it was for him. He had been trying not to think of the different ways in which he cared for Bella, because the emotions echoed his wife's but with one significant difference:

He definitely wanted to make love with her. Not apart from Alice, no. He wanted them both.

And he didn't know how Alice would handle that if she knew. And she would know, because it would be obvious at some point, probably in the near future. It was complicated, layered, deep and real and it worried him more than it should. Because what he felt for her was just about what _Edward_ had felt for her, and that frightened him.

"Jasper?" she asked, still wrapped in his arms. "What is that you're feeling?"

He tried to pull himself together. "Sorry, hon. Am I projecting?"

"Whatever it is, you've just gone blurry!" she accused, bouncing off his lap to land, fists on hips, in front of him. "I see Bella and she's smiling and we're all hugging and happy and then everything goes all fuzzy and — and stop it!" And the woman actually stomped her foot.

He had to laugh, which relaxed him somewhat. "Better?"

"No. Tell me, Jasper Whitlock. Right the hell now."

With a long sigh, he leaned forward, elbows on knees, and unfisted her hands to hold them. "You know how you feel about our Bella?" She nodded, her expression softening. "I feel very much the same way."

"Oh! Well, that's good, then." Her energy returned in bright waves of anticipation. "She's coming home, Jas! And we can tell her how we feel and ask her to stay and —"

He rose to wrap himself around her, so that they both looked out at the snowy expanse of night, waiting for dawn. "There's more. I want her, too, Alice. But not just to hold her hand while we make love, you and I." He felt like he was on a precipice, every part of him extended to brace himself or fall. He didn't know which way the wind would blow him. "This doesn't affect how I love you," he assured her slowly, not wanting her to feel cornered. "It just means...more. Like she has a part of my heart, too. And, yeah, my libido."

Alice stood still within his arms, her emotions actually _not_ vibrating around him like hyperactive rabbits. "So, like me. Sharing?" Curiosity, intrigue, love — still — and lust curled around the two of them. She smiled up at him. "I could like that, I think. Just because _I_ don't want to doesn't mean I don't think it'd be hot if _you_ did. Sharing would be...complete, you know?"

Surprise did a crazy trip through his middle and out his spine, making him blow out a breath. "Wow. All right."

They remained there at the window, waiting for the first hints of morning to color the sky. Jasper decided not to discuss with Alice his misgivings about how to introduce all of this to Bella. It could be amazing. Or disastrous.

What if she felt more for that nomad, Garrett, than she let on? Alice hadn't seen her returning with him, but it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility for Alice to miss something. It had happened before where Bella was concerned. Might be that that protective shield Bella wrapped around herself sometimes could block out Alice's sight.

What if Bella, for all that she loved them, didn't want to further the sexual aspect of their relationship? He didn't think a woman as passionate as she was would want to remain eternally in a self-love environment. She'd leave them, seeking what was her right and due as a woman. Surely.

What if she went seeking and fell in love? For real? As she had with Edward? The purity and power of their mutual love had been stunning, until it wasn't. Blissful to bask in, as far as he was concerned. If Bella found that out there, he would not think of dissuading her from following her heart. Not at all.

And maybe, one day, she'd find her true mate. She would know the depth of connection he and Alice shared. Of course he and Alice would miss her, but he would rejoice in her new relationship as well.

His mind traveled thusly as the sky began to lose the night. Alice moved right up to the glass, bouncing up and down on her toes. Wearing just a short leather skirt and cashmere top, she looked like a college student waiting for a favorite band to arrive for a concert. "Almost," she breathed against the glass.

His own emotions cycled between delight at seeing Bella again and concern for what might happen if things went as he expected they might, through anticipation as the cycle completed itself. Over and over and over. That predator he had imagined had turned into a hamster in a wheel. With whatever aphrodisiac worked on a hamster.

He did not need Alice's squeal to know it was time for Bella to arrive. She had left on foot and would, according to his wife, arrive on foot, with a pack on her back. "Come on!" Alice insisted, pulling at his hand to get them out the door and into the snow.

He wasn't barefoot, but wore jeans and a button-down. Standard college-professor attire, sans tie. Holding Alice's hand, he paced to the edge of the official "yard" for this piece of property and waited.

The emotions came first. He had his senses extended at the first hint of her direction. Knowing her as well as he did, deciphering her emotions wasn't generally a difficult process as much as it was complex. _And there she is, unguarded._

Guilt tugged briefly on his conscience, but he let it go. Knowing the emotions made handling the words and gestures so much easier. Anxiety was prevalent. Distrust, which wounded him. Did she not trust them or, maybe she didn't trust herself? Apologies in several emotional shades were there, too.

"Bella! Bella!" Alice shouted and ran, and Jasper joined her. They flashed over the snow to meet Bella as she emerged from the treeline, as a winter day began anew. Alice leapt at their Bella, holding her and squeezing her and doing her best to assure their prodigal that she was entirely forgiven and welcome and loved.

Then, it was his turn and, with less energy but no less intensity, Jasper scooped Bella up and held her close, projecting all the emotions he had for her.

And, as she held him tight, apologizing under her breath, he felt it. That flare of love that matched his own and Alice's, in their two different "flavors."

He must have given away that he felt it, for the emotional outpouring ceased as she slid from his embrace.

Wincing into his eyes, she just said one word. "Damn."

* * *

* _agape, phileo, eros_ = three common Greek terms for love. _Eros_ = a sexual love. _Phileo_ = to befriend, to be friendly toward, to be affectionate with. _Agape_ = benevolence, brotherly love that is close and translated by the Ancients as love among family; husband to wife, parent to child.

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	16. I'm Going Down

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Being gone a month hadn't done anything except clarify her own feelings, Bella realized as she winced from revealing those feelings to Jasper. The multifaceted nature of the vampire brain let her freak out privately while understanding somehow that she had been cloaked, soaked and filled with love from the mated pair in front of her.

The combination made her a little dizzy and she actually swayed on her feet.

Joy filled her, though, as Alice grabbed one hand while Jasper took her other one. "It's so good to be home," she breathed.

"It's so good to have you _back_." Alice tugged her against her side. "We have _so much_ to talk about."

"I owe you guys an explanation," Bella began.

Jasper tugged her against _his_ side, and all three of them smiled. It was just so comfortable and perfect. "No, I think you'll find that we understand you better than you know, Isabella. But you might consider giving the rest of the family a phone call, now that you're home. Emmett near took my head off when we told him you went nomad."

How many people had she upset by leaving? Carlisle had said nothing of that, of course, in his email to her. He had just told her about Garrett and told her to be careful. Like any father might, really, but without a guilt trip. "I am so sorry."

They had reached the house, with its welcoming lights and warmth. She stood there, pausing at the threshold before going in. "I know it hasn't been that long, but it feels weird, you know?"

Jasper chuckled. "I do."

Stepping inside, Bella twisted to get the knapsack off her back. Alice stepped back a bit and Jasper took her pack. And they all just stood there. Motionless. Like statues, staring at one another.

Discomfort skimmed over her skin and she felt sure this was her fault, this awkward in-between place into which she had dumped them all. Alice was watching her carefully, a light in her eye, but not touching her. Or Jasper, either, which was odd. He, for his part, was watching Bella. And not touching Alice.

"I screwed up," Bella whispered. "And I'm sorry."

"First, you need a shower," Alice asserted. "Then there will be time for explanations. It's Sunday and I don't have to be at work today and Jasper's off, too, and we can all go hunt and then talk."

Hunting. Hunting always led to sex with these two. With every pair of vampires who were involved, as far as Bella had seen. Was she ready to just pick up where they had been before Christmas Eve? Down the hall with her music going and...

"A shower," she agreed. "Then we should talk."

Jasper's lips twitched against a smile and she had the feeling that, her own personal shield wrapped as tightly as she could or not, he knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling.

Lust. That was one thing she was feeling, she decided as she returned to her room, Alice and Jasper close behind. It was exactly the same as it had been, her room. But she hadn't spent her last "night" there. The most significant last moments had been on the bed in the room down the hall.

The memories were rich in the forefront of her awareness and she could hardly bring herself to look at Jasper and Alice. At their continued stillness, she brought her gaze to them deliberately. They were watching her with small smiles on their faces, expressions that communicated happiness, love and even a little wariness. As if she might run again.

Their uncertainty made her ache and it was her own fault. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped to them and took one of their hands in each of her own. They completed the little circle by holding hands themselves. As if on cue, they all squeezed tightly. "I —"

"Shower first," Alice said warmly, love shining clearly in her eyes. Such a winsome light, it made Bella's guilt increase exponentially.

"We'll be waiting in the living room, sugar," Jasper told her, his eyes alight, too.

Nodding, Bella let them go and turned, hearing them close the door as they left. _All right. A shower. First._ She dumped her dirty clothes in the hamper in the walk-in closet and stripped. A shower. She hadn't had one in the entire time she'd been gone. Cleaning had been a rainwater and travel-size soap event. Stepping into hot water, being quickly surrounded by steam, luxuriating in a whole handful of bath gel and shampoo and conditioner. She moaned at the sheer pleasure she felt. Her skin heated from the water, she toweled off and went to the closet.

She had to choose something to wear. She decided on a pair of sleep shorts and matching top, in mocha-hued satin she had purchased years ago but worn only rarely. While combing her hair, Bella studied herself in the mirror. Yes, she could love them. She _did_ love them. She didn't want to part from them again. What they had was good, and the next time she felt dissatisfied, well, she'd remember how much worse it was to be on her own.

With a nod, she left the bathroom and went bravely down to face the people she loved more than anything.

They were sitting on the white bearskin rug, clearly having left a space for her to lean against the leather sofa. All of them were barefoot now, not just Alice, and the air of expectation was tight. "Hey."

Alice patted the fur as if Bella hadn't figured out that was where she was supposed to sit. "Hey! So. What do you want to do first?"

Jasper eyed her with a twinkle. "She's not dressed for hunting, hon."

They laughed and the atmosphere eased somewhat. Bella slid gracefully to the rug. "Not hunting, no." She steeled herself. "Explanations?"

"To us or to the Cullens?" Jasper's expression was sober, but she could feel the love he had for her and it made her less stressed than she might have been.

She drew in a long breath. They didn't have to breathe, but the act of doing so was cleansing, reassuring. And it bought a person a quick second in which to think and center themselves, which was never a bad thing. Jasper always advised her to assess the situation...

"I was overwhelmed," she stated quietly, making sure to have eye contact with one or the other of them. She owed them that. It was easier, with Alice. The love was easier there, even if she felt riddled through with a betrayer's guilt. "I love you so much. Maybe too much." _Whew. Okay. That was the hard part_. Jasper opened his mouth, but Alice quickly made a gesture and he hushed. Bella pretended not to notice as she continued. "That scares me, to be honest. I feel weird. I don't want to get in the middle or have things be strange or anything, but it's not like we have any secrets, right? I mean, I try, but I'm not as strong as you, Jas, with my whatever-it-is gift and no one hides from Alice, even when they use sheets." With a shy sort of smile at them both, she reached for their hands. "So I didn't know what to do or to say and I had to see if I could get over it. Or feel like I maybe could someday get past it, you know? Like I did with, with Edward, after."

Alice looked at their joined hands. "How did that work out?" she asked tentatively.

"Lousy. I still love you. More than I should. But without you, I'm not home. I couldn't even keep from emailing you."

"I'm glad you did. I worried about you," Jasper told her, brushing her knee with the backs of his fingers. "Anything else you feel you need to say?"

Bella blinked, her thoughts scurrying to see if there was anything she missed. "About what?"

Alice made an impatient sound. "Garrett!"

Relieved, Bella let herself relax against the sofa entirely. "Oh! At first, I felt almost like Carlisle had sent a watchdog, you know? But it wasn't like that at all, and we just ran around together." Remembering, she laughed shortly. "We're not mates, but he did make sure I knew that. He was very nice," she added.

Jasper tilted his head a little and, as if they'd rehearsed it or something, he and Alice scooted closer to her and to one another so that they were all touching. He brought his arms around them and they did the same so that they were embracing one another in the absolute quiet of their home. Bella let her muscles melt in the shelter of their arms and felt whole for the first time in weeks. She felt forgiven. And very much loved.

So much so that at first, she didn't even feel odd when Jasper's lips brushed the top of her hair like they'd done for years. When Alice tucked her head under Bella's chin and they all crunched even closer together, it was right and homecoming-feeling and loving and warm together. They even sighed in unison, their breaths mingling in that small sphere of space they had created in the center of their trio.

She brushed her fingers up and down Alice's cashmere-covered spine, enjoying the way her dearest friend snuggled even more closely to her. Jasper nudged Bella's head slightly so that his mouth slid down her temple, cheek, and jawline tilting her head back. Jasper and Alice met below her chin in a brief caress of kissing.

"Bella?" Alice whispered, her lips behind Bella's ear as Jasper slid one hand to encompass Bella's ankle. "We love you. _I_ love you."

" _I_ love you, too," Jasper said, his forehead now pressed to Bella's own. She felt his emotions press against her as well, tangibly. A love that surrounded her, filled her, made her think that yes, this was what she had been wanting, ever since...

But.

"How...?"

Alice took one of her hands and, with gentle direction, guided Bella to slide her fingers under Jasper's collar, and down to the front, where Alice swiftly parted fabric and Bella's hand followed, brushing Jasper's scarred but sculpted chest and abdomen as he straightened to let the ladies have their way with him. "Like this," Alice continued. "We want to share."

"Share..." Bella repeated, held captive as Jasper's shirt melted away and Alice's clever hands moved over his skin, nudging hers when she halted in insecurity.

"Share," Jasper echoed, arching so that he could meet Alice's kiss over his shoulder. He pulled Bella to his chest as he did so, and she closed her eyes and breathed him in, ginger and cinnamon and sage. She felt his finger touch her jaw, urging her head to tilt toward his and she obeyed, feeling Alice's hands in her hair and Jasper's breath wash over her own skin an instant before his mouth found hers.

She might have moaned, she certainly felt as if she had. Parting her lips, she wordlessly invited him to share a little more and he did, deepening their kiss and sighing loudly inside her mouth.

Opening her eyes, half expecting to cringe, Bella saw Alice's heart in her golden irises. And she was glowing.

"Oh yeah," the seer murmured, "that was beautiful."

"Are you all right?" Jasper asked them both, his eyes dark. "I'm serious," he added with a slanted look at Bella. "No hiding."

Was she all right? Bella felt as if she'd been half-turned inside out, her body _needing_ , her heart _wanting_ , but... "Alice...?"

With a light laugh, Alice slid between Jasper and Bella so that she was propped up on two laps. "I'm great. Better than. I promise." After a moment, she cocked her head. "You? Serious now, Bella."

"I feel like I don't understand, but, but I want to."

"Fair enough," Jasper agreed. "I can tell you that we love you. Because we do. And we've talked about it."

Alice grinned at him and, with a conspiratorial look at Bella, teased, "Isn't he going all _Major Whitlock_ now?"

Bella smiled, feeling a bit more at ease with the lessening of sexual tension. "Oh, yeah. Do we salute?"

"Only if he salutes first, _if_ you know what I mean!"

They giggled together like girls and Jasper pretended to be all on his dignity but the emotions that poured from him were warm and accepting and Bella knew that Alice felt it too. When Alice shifted a bit, arched a brow significantly and made a show of saluting her husband, Bella saluted likewise.

Immediately, they were all drenched in desire and stared at one another. "Upstairs," Jasper rasped.

He didn't need to tell them twice. Alice crawled between them to roll up on her feet, pulling Bella up in an extended embrace that she felt up and down her entire body while Jasper watched, rapt.

Bella reminded herself that she loved them. They loved her. They were both clearly wanting her with them for this. It couldn't be wrong if no one was hurt, could it? Separating from Alice, she resolutely started toward the stairs at a human's pace, wanting not to rush this. Just in case.

"Your room?" she called over her shoulder, trying to be nonchalant.

"Bigger bed!" Alice reminded her.

They had just reached the second floor when Alice's phone rang. "Shoot!" Alice almost growled. "It's _Edward_."

* * *

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**


	17. Sky, Don't Let the Sun Go Down

**  
**

Jasper felt the irritation thicken in his chest. Never mind the ache of his arousal pressing against his jeans. Damned vampire skin – so sensitive. So responsive. Wonderful in its time and place, but sometimes? A pain in the ass.

Or groin. Whichever.

Beside him, Bella had gone motionless. "Isabella? I'm gonna guess he's calling for word on you, since he was going all caveman while you were away."

That snapped her out of it. "What?" Then, "Never mind. Give me the phone."

"You go, girl," Alice cheered, her lithe body running down the hall to retrieve the phone and toss it to Bella.

Jasper felt the determination swirl with worry as Bella answered Alice's phone. "Hello?"

"Alice? Wait, no." Of course they could all hear, so Jasper felt no compulsion to pretend they didn't. Instead, he curled up with Alice in the middle of their bed and invited Bella to join them.

Clearly focusing on the conversation, Bella did so, shifting and sliding, and Jasper could not help but appreciate how well she moved and how the light caught her curves under the satiny fabric of her pajamas.

"Bella?"

"Hi, Edward," she said, her voice smooth, without any jagged emotional overtones.

 _Good for you, sweetheart,_ Jasper thought in silent encouragement.

She pushed a section of drying hair behind one ear as the sun rose high enough to come through the window and glance radiantly from her skin. Alice sighed, contentment sliding from her body like water in a hot tub. It was stimulating, but comforting.

"Bella. You're back? I heard you'd run."

"I did, but I'm home now. I was just explaining and apologizing to Alice and Jasper." Jasper corralled her with one arm to tuck her into his side. Alice remained on his lap and they all listened unashamedly.

"What happened?"

"I just needed to get away."

There was a pause. "And that's it? You frighten the family because you needed to get away? Bella..."

"Edward, it's between Jas and Alice and myself, okay? I am sorry for any worry I caused you or the rest of the Cullens, but it's not a situation you all need to know about. We live apart for a _reason_."

"I don't think I've ever heard him splutter before," Alice confided. Not that softly, either.

Jasper grinned. "Me neither."

"They're right there?"

"This _is_ Alice's phone," Bella reminded him. "You're the one who called."

Another pause ensued and Jasper could feel the worry and impatience oozing out around whatever it was that Bella wrapped tight around herself. Finally, she spoke. "How are you and Bronwyn?" So proud of her, Jasper planted a loud, smacking kiss on her head. Alice's eyes opened roundly and she did the same. Bella, not a slow girl by any means, just rolled her eyes. "Still in Paris?"

"She's fine and yes, we are. It's lovely in the winter." Edward made an uncomfortable sound. "Look. I just wanted to know that you were all right, Bella. I'm glad you are. We'll be back to rejoin the family this spring, I think. Will you and Jasper and Alice be returning likewise?"

"Hell, no," Jasper muttered.

After giving him a look, Bella answered softly. "I don't think so, Edward. We're going to be moving soon, though, so I'm sure we'll all get together this spring or summer for a visit." Alice nodded and Jasper decided he could handle that.

Thing was, it felt right for the three of them to be on their own together. He liked it. He and Alice were good together, yes, but the addition of Bella made it seem that they didn't need to have anyone else. He had no desire to rejoin the Cullens and repeat high school again, pretending to be a big, adoptive family.

"Well, you'll need to speak to Carlisle, then. I think he's expecting you," Edward advised.

Bella nodded. "I'm sure we will. Look, Edward? It's my first day back. I need to spend the time with Jas and Alice, okay?"

Another pause. Jasper's curiosity crested; he felt he would have paid real money to have been able to feel Edward's emotions during this phone call. "Of course. Be safe, Bella."

She sighed. "You too, Edward." She offered the phone back to Alice, who cut the connection and stretched nimbly back to place the handset on the nightstand.

When Alice was sitting upright again, her expression was impish; her mood filled with sensual expectation. "Where were we?"

Annoyance still layered itself heavily within Jasper's awareness, making sex feel not nearly as important as telling Edward — and Carlisle and Emmett, for that matter — that the Whitlocks were not currently associated with the House of Cullen. That his coven, Jasper's, consisted of himself and his mate and their love and he would appreciate it if they would just drop their expectations of him. Of _them_. _Of Bella_ , for Pete's sake.

Alice winked at Bella, who was emitting a cautious vibe at the moment, making Jasper want to kiss her into oblivion.

"Bella? I think Jas, here, needs to calm down."

Catching the playfully serious note in Alice's voice, Bella perked up and smiled a little. "I think you're right. How do you do it, _Al_?"

"Well, _Bell_ , first thing is _we_ have to get these jeans off him. I am so glad I'm not a male, because...well, look at this." _This_ was, naturally, the blatant evidence that though his head might be irritated and annoyed, his body was still in the mood for love. Bella froze, and Jasper would have reached for the sheet they had kept on the foot of the bed for sentimental reasons, but Alice took things in her knowledgeable hands. "Have you ever...?"

Guided by Alice, Bella gripped Jasper with fingers that clearly knew what to do, now that they had permission. Jasper felt like his mind had been scattered and regrouped in an unfamiliar — but definitely erotic — way. Seeing that Bella had him well in hand, Alice kissed him quickly before tonguing him down the column of his throat, and lord, what that did to him. He groaned and bucked up into Bella's hand.

She stroked and pumped and, as Alice reached his nipples, Bella shocked the hell out of him and took him into her mouth.

Judging by her skill and mastery of whatever gag reflex she might have once possessed, Edward was not nearly as prudish as they all had thought. As Jasper fought off his climax — because, hell, this was his first time with the two of them and he did not want to lose it so damned early — he felt Bella's desire increase and Alice's arousal was strong in the air about them. He didn't know whom to touch, how to hold them, as he sat, half-reclined on the bed. Alice tilted him back, kissing him all the while and Bella took him deep.

And he lost it.

The pleasure exploded from him, just him, as Bella and Alice absorbed it and returned it in their own muted ways. Words as blue as any he'd ever heard frothed from his mouth as he tore at Alice's skirt and did everything he could not to pull Bella's hair as he came.

Then, he slowed down in the heavy doses of love both women pushed at him, on purpose and with smiles all over their faces. Amazed and humbled, he gathered both of them up to him as he lay supine, and whispered his thanks. Then, his recovery time being negligible, he kissed them both, relishing the different tastes and textures, before saying, "We have a clothing inequality, here."

Nothing prepared him for the girls beginning to take off one another's clothes in front of him. Jasper thought that, surely, existence would not be sweeter. Ever.

Bubbling inside as if she were filled with champagne, Alice pulled Bella from the bed. "You're right. Absolutely, Major Whitlock." She noticed that he responded to being called this in private and added that to a new benefit to be added in the "with Bella it's better" column. Smiling slowly, she unzipped her own skirt and pushed it tantalizingly down her legs.

Bella bent to pick it up and toss it to a chair before, entirely on her own, lifting the bottom of the cashmere sweater to slide it up over Alice's torso, revealing her in lacy, lingerie beauty. Then, Bella whispered, "How far are we going, here?"

"How far do you want to go?" Alice wondered, entirely serious. It was one thing to perform oral sex while fully covered in shiny brown satin; it was another to strip in front of a male. "Want me to blindfold him again? I've seen you naked before."

Chuckling, Bella toyed with Alice's bra strap. "True." She glanced at Jasper through eyelashes that Alice personally envied in the best way. She herself had not had a healthy physique when she had been changed. She knew herself to be beautiful and sexually stimulating (because her mate left her in no doubt of this) but her body had not been at its peak. Bella, however, had been a young woman at her most appealing when she became a vampire. Lustrous, long hair, thick lashes and lovely curves had translated into immortality with distinction. But, she was still female and Alice well knew that Bella's sense of her own beauty was not strong.

"Blindfold me," Jasper murmured, his eyes nearly black with arousal. He didn't seem to know where to look and that was, to Alice's eyes, delightful.

She slipped the blindfold out and fastened it around his willing head and then beckoned to Bella. "What if I take this off now?" she asked, indicating Bella's pajamas.

"All right."

Disrobing Bella and driving Jasper insane while doing so was a highlight of Alice's entire decade. Bella's nerves dissolved into the pulsating desire Jasper was projecting, so that her eyes grew heavy and her skin tightened. Alice smiled and admired; she did enjoy the female form. Once Bella was naked, Alice slipped from her own underwear and indicated that Bella should go to Jasper's right.

She did this all in sensual soundlessness.

Finger to Bella's lips, she abjured the other woman to maintain the silence as they pushed their man back to the mattress.

"You know you're killin' me here, ladies, right?"

Bella took one of Jasper's hands and put it on the side of her face to nod. Alice had to admire the nonverbal communication.

Jasper kept his hand there for only a moment before exploring Bella's body with just that one hand. Alice watched, entranced, as Jasper's strong, broad palm smoothed over Bella's breasts, ribs, and the outside of her hip before flipping over and caressing the aromatic flesh between her thighs. That was _hot_.

Head moving back and forth, as if trying to see where he could not, Jasper made a deep, impatient sound while giving off an eager, lustful drive for more. "Please," he whispered.

As Bella seemed to be more in the mood to play, Alice directed her to sidle up, up to the headboard of the bed and position herself. And yes, her best friend was a natural, pleasing Alice enormously. She herself eyed Jasper's prominence and, after tapping the dimples atop Bella's fantastic backside, straddled his hips and both women lowered themselves on him simultaneously.

She was not disappointed.

Jasper's hands flew to Bella's hips, holding her in place while he drank her in like a man parched for years. Bella cried out, gripping the metal under her hands so that the steel bent audibly. _Score!_ Powerful hips surged into Alice's own body, and she leaned forward, her hair sometimes brushing Bella's back as she rode her horseman.

"Alice, I'm sorry, can't be quiet, oh...!" Bella gasped, her body at the mercy of Jasper's tongue and hands. "Jas! Jas...oh, please...!"

"No apologies," Alice ground out, her own body intent upon satisfaction. It was her turn, dammit! Jasper filled her completely, his body and his gift bringing her to exultation. Bella's pleasure rolled into him and Alice remembered the stunning power of their cycling climaxes the last time Bella was with them.

And they began again, Jasper reaching for one of her hands as she bowed over his body, and then stretched backward, holding him and feeling him erupt in her depths.

When their bodies quieted at last, they collapsed together, limbs entwined, with lazy smiles on their faces. Alice remembered this from her vision of last year and felt sublimely content.

"I love you guys," Bella murmured, taking off Jasper's blindfold, but burying herself in the sheets in the full light of day.

He kissed her. "Love you." And then he kissed Alice.

"Love you, too," she said.

* * *

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**


	18. Never Mind What I Knew

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**

The conversation with Edward had further solidified Jasper's personal idea at making their arrangement permanent. So, after having the opportunity to turn the tables on Alice by blindfolding _her_ while making love to both of them, they showered quickly and independently before he said, "I'd like to talk about this." He gestured between the three of them in the hall.

Bella's anxiety spiked. "If it's me, if I —"

"Hush," Alice whispered, wrapping herself around Bella. "The only way this is about you at all is for us to figure out how we fit, now. And you fit with us, okay? We want you with us."

"And what you said to Edward was right on target, sugar," Jasper assured her. "This is between us. We are gonna have to relocate soon, and we won't be rejoining the Cullens." He paused and felt around her with his gift very carefully. "You are an independent woman, Isabella. You can do as you want, of course. I know Carlisle and Esme will always consider you a daughter."

Bella smirked. "Somehow, I don't think Edward and Bronwyn will ever put me in the sibling category."

Together, they all trekked back to the living room. Bella took Alice's hand and led her to the sofa, where they curled up in one corner. Jasper sat sideways to face them in the other. Bella was content to play with Alice's hair. It was so comforting, just being with her. With _them_.

"You've been around a long time," Bella said as Jasper seemed to search for how to get this rolling. "Is there, like, a formal declaration or something that we have to make? What about with the Volturi?"

Alice reached around and pulled a little on a lock of Bella's hair. "The more we can avoid those vultures, the happier I'll be."

Jasper's expression was dead serious. "Nothing has to be said. And it was weird enough that we had the Volturi on our doorstep not that long ago, you know? I would just as soon never have to look Felix or Demetri in the eye again. Invisible is good." A thought occurred to him and he smiled at Bella. "You could make us invisible, if you wanted, maybe."

"Ha!"

"But really, Bella," Alice said, because she felt it was important, "I wanted to make sure that we're what you want. Because you're what we want. I know he feels that way and so do I."

" _I_ have to make sure...?" She didn't quite understand that. "Look, I'm the low man on the totem pole, here. I know that. I don't have anything to bring to a new coven. I'm barely out of school and trying to make my way, yeah, but...why is it up to me?"

Jasper drew nearer to them and took her hand in both of his. "Sweetheart. We know that you were broken when Edward found his mate. I don't doubt your love for me, for us, now. Not in the least, but I also know that leaves you kinda vulnerable." Bella took a sharp breath and Alice reached around to give her a backwards-hug. Jasper stroked her skin with his fingers, tracing her bone structure, sending her minute amounts of soothing calm so she didn't freak out. Not enough to overtly influence her, but enough to allow her to focus on what they were discussing, not her feelings about it, necessarily. "You had said before that you wanted to find your mate. Maybe even to wait for him, even if it took a long time."

"I did, didn't I."

"Mm-hm. So what we want to know is if that's still your plan, or would you want to leave yourself open for...for us. For us to love you and for you to love us and to stay with us, like that."

Surprise, love, gratitude, confusion and doubt bounced out and around her, but she held still and thought. Alice appeared about to say something, but Jasper shot her a look and she hushed.

"What if, what if I meet him, someday?" Bella wondered at length. "I know how I felt. I wouldn't want either of you to ever, ever feel like that. Ever."

Jasper winced internally, because he knew this might hurt, might make the inequality in this expanded relationship greater in her eyes. Perhaps _too_ great. Alice directed _such_ a glare at him as he delayed! "Hon. It would hurt, yeah, to lose you to your true mate. Not gonna lie." Alice echoed him softly behind Bella's ear, which seemed to calm the two of them, relieving Jasper considerably. "But since Alice and I are mates, we'd have each other. And though it would hurt — I can't even imagine what level of hurt, to be honest — to lose you, I know that both of us would be so happy to know you have someone like she and I have each other. And you know, because you saw Edward, that though it would hurt for you to leave us, you'd be able to do it. And it would be a good thing for you. And we'd rejoice and give you away at your wedding, or whatever," he added, remembering that Bella had had an issue with weddings, once upon a time.

Her hand grew motionless in his own and her other one, the one that had been toying absently with the small spikes of hair at the nape of Alice's neck, froze likewise. "So you're wondering if I want to stay even knowing I could meet my mate one day? You're wanting me to, like, be permanent? Or...?"

"Yes," Alice said with quiet force. "Exactly. We're not human. We don't have to worry about children or legal issues like that. We can just be together. The three of us. Committed to one another. We all change names like some people get new cars, so it's not like a name is the big thing, with us. For us, sweetie, it's just about knowing if you want that."

"You know," Bella said slowly, sliding out from behind Alice to pace to the cold, clean fireplace and back, "one of the first things Edward said to me after my change was that he was sorry, that he had wanted me to have a human life."

At her apparent non sequitur, Jasper beckoned to her. She came close enough to hold hands, but that was it. "What do you mean, hon?" And what the hell did _Edward_ have to do with _them_?

Odd, but he had mostly _liked_ his brother over the past fifty or so years. Not so much any more.

"This is like a human thing," Bella elaborated, sitting on his knee almost as an afterthought. "I know, Alice, that you said it wasn't, but it kind of is, you know? Vampires – we have mates. There is one way to know real surety about a relationship. And it is sure. And it's real, you said. I saw it with Edward and I see it with the two of you all the time." She smiled faintly. "It's beautiful. But what you want me to do is to be human, right? To do this without that kind of permanence. To go with the risk, like I did when I was human and fell in love with a vampire."

Jasper felt her love, felt the wish to belong echoing under her skin, and wrapped his arms around her. Alice stood and did the same. "You're so good, Bella," she said. "And I wish — I wish we could make it more permanent like that for you, so you didn't have to worry or feel insecurities or anything. I do."

"But you can't, and I get it, Alice, I do."

Jasper felt her weighing herself, emotionally. It was a peculiar thing to register on his radar, as it were, but it did. He reviewed the hundreds of relationships he had witnessed over his time walking the earth. He plundered his memories, seeking something with which to reassure her. But he had nothing.

Nothing but the love he bore for her and for his wife and the love the three of them shared together. "We can only give you this," he said, letting the emotional caress touch her and Alice and revive itself in him.

It was profound. He felt both the women melt into one another and then into him and he turned so that they could each have a knee and the support he could provide them by sheer dint of his physical size. The warmth, the emotional and even spiritual connections braided themselves between him and the women and he felt that yes, this was something they could do together.

"Well?" he prompted, hoping, feeling more than halfway certain, but this was _Bella_ , after all, and nothing was certain with her.

She inhaled deeply before kissing him without any preamble whatsoever. She was so brave, he felt. Tangible courage floated from her body to his own as her lips melded to his. Alice moved and her lips caressed his ear, moving to his throat and he found her next, while Bella watched with peaceful security now radiating from her.

"Yes."

* * *

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	19. I'll Follow You into the Light

**  
**

Deciding to let herself love and be loved by two amazing people was one thing. Planning on living that way was another.

She had to call the Cullens, once things had been spoken and promised and even _consummated_. Almost, she wanted to whine, "Do I have to?" to Jasper, but she knew he'd say she did.

Between them, she and Alice got really turned on when Jasper went all dominant male coven leader on them. He wasn't _domineering_ as much as he was _decisive_. He didn't generally yell, unless it was during sex. Bella knew this from years of living with the man. He just...spoke. And he did so usually in a way that worked, because he monitored emotions. But instead of feeling intruded upon, Bella found that he made her feel even more cared for, because he was taking the time to understand her, not presume to know what she wanted.

So when he suggested she call Esme, at the very least, that Sunday evening before they went hunting, Bella complied.

"Bella! Oh, sweetheart, we missed you at New Year's."

"Sorry, Esme. I had some things to figure out."

There was a pause and when she spoke again, Esme's voice was low and calm. "That's what I heard, dear. Are you home, now?"

"Yeah. I'm really sorry I upset anyone. I just had to get away, you know?"

Esme sighed into the phone. "Once, Edward felt like that, you know. He had to get away. He was gone for years. But when he returned to us, his commitment to our way of life was stronger and he understood why, then."

"He told me about that, yes."

"I'm hoping, sweetheart, that your time away was equally as beneficial for you."

She grinned and bit her lip, thinking of the immediate benefits her decision had brought her. "Yes, Esme, I believe it was."

"Ah, wonderful. So, dear, we need to get together and think about themes for the new place. We've been here a long time and we're going to be heading to Scotland, next. Won't that be exciting?"

Bella winced, thinking of the last time she had been to the United Kingdom. Really, she needed to go again to make new memories. Still, she said, "I'm sure you'll have a good time, Esme. What do you plan on doing?"

"Oh, we found an old manor on a wooded estate. Up for a quick sale due to financial reverses, you know. Our agent has been over it and it would be a sound investment, she says."

"Well, great!" Bella tried to muster some enthusiasm, wondering how to tell darling Esme that she, Bella, wouldn't be going to Scotland.

"Yes! So, you know, Bella dear, that you always have a home with us. I want to make your room exactly what you want, now that you're on your own and everything..." Even Esme couldn't make that sound upbeat. Though she did try. "I heard that Alice and Jasper are preparing to move, too, so we'll be getting everyone set up and we'll all be back together. I have _missed_ having all of you at home. It seems like ages since we all lived together."

Bella looked hopelessly around her room, wondering what to say and how to say it nicely. "I don't think we'll be joining you in Scotland, Esme. I'm not sure where we'll be going — I think it depends upon where Jasper finds something to do that suits him, though we haven't really ironed out the details yet — but we'll be going together."

There was nothing on the other end of the connection and Bella listened hard. Finally, she heard Esme breathing. "So, you're not coming back?"

"I don't think so. I mean, we love you and we'll visit, but we are kind of making this work on our own, now." She tried to laugh. "You know, like kids do. Go to school, get a job, move out on their own..."

Alice appeared at the open door, palm extended. _Let me_ , the gesture said. So Bella did.

Sitting next to her on the bed, Alice smiled at the phone. "Esme!"

"Alice! So our Bella is back safe and sound?"

Bella lay back on the bed, one arm around Alice's waist as the seer continued the discussion. "Yes, she is. We've asked her not to take off like that again without her phone," Alice said on a laugh. "But hopefully, she won't feel she has to run nomad again."

"So, she said she won't be rejoining us when we go to Scotland."

Alice tilted her head. "Oh, Esme. I can see the house. It's beautiful. Oh look, you're going to have some good hunting this summer."

"Ah, so you're not coming."

"No, we're not. Like she said, we're still ironing out the details, but I am pretty sure Jasper will be calling Carlisle soon."

 _And if he doesn't_ , Bella thought, _we'll harass him until he does!_

"Well, I'd still like to have rooms for you, you know, for when you visit..."

Alice drew in an audible breath and turned to meet Bella's eyes. "I think just one room, Esme. With a king-sized bed. For all three of us." Bella nodded and Alice beamed.

"All...three...of you?"

* * *

"I did _not_ see this happening," Alice griped. "Not at first, I mean." It was Wednesday evening and they had received a call from Emmett that he and Rose, as well as Carlisle and Esme, would be arriving at Ithaca Tompkins Regional that evening, having chartered a small plane from La Guardia.

Jasper was mentally preparing for a siege as he sat in his office. In his hands, he held a baseball bat. It was from the 1960's, and had been a gift from Edward. It was to remind him, Jasper thought, of humanity in all its non-prey aspects. That evening, he eyed it thoughtfully, feeling the smooth wood under his fingertips and thinking of the many, many games of baseball he had played with the Cullens. His brothers and sisters – for he never truly considered Carlisle and Esme to be parental in any way, shape or form – had shown him the joys of family. Of belonging.

But first, he had had his mate to show him how to love. And _they_ had Bella, who had shown them resilience and bravery. He knew how capable she was of loving; he had seen it, felt it, and experienced it on different levels. That he could count her as part of his —

 _What do we call this?_ he asked himself. Oh, he had studied, yes. Polyamory was certainly not unheard of in their world. Though he had been a vampire, a blood-drinker, since the middle of the nineteenth century, he still held to values he had carried with him, in some respects. Did he ask Bella to marry him...and Alice? Did they just agree to _be_? So far, just _being_ was all that had been decided. Alice had made the sterling point that they were not confined to human boundaries and difficulties, simply because of their natures.

"We got a heads-up. It'll do," he told his mate. Bella was upstairs, finishing a revision for her employers, before the family arrived. "Are you happy?"

Alice turned from the window. It was, to her, seeking confirmation of something her inner eye had already seen. "With West Virginia? D'you think this Louisiana girl can cut it?" she teased.

He grinned and drawled, "No doubt in my mind," in his best Texan twang. Then, he sobered a bit. "So, any tips, Sprite?"

She propped herself against his desk. "Funny thing, maybe, but Carlisle is actually looking to be the most understanding."

Jasper felt a wave of sorrow-laced anxiety from overhead in Bella's room. _Damn_. He didn't doubt Bella or her commitment to them now, but the Cullen "parents" had stood in for her own in a lot of ways and there might always be a bond of such, there. "What about Emmett?"

Alice shook her head. "As enthusiastic as he is about sex? He's kind of traditional. This could be a problem."

Jasper smoothed the baseball bat between his palms again. "You're not seeing it all very clearly, are you?"

She shrugged and grimaced. "Lots of decisions, sweetie. I can't see 'em all."

"I love you," he murmured to remind her.

"I know!" She blew him a kiss and resumed her vigil.

Upstairs, Bella's phone rang. He could only hear her, but that was enough.

"Edward, hi."

Irritation and curiosity seemed to push themselves into his chest from where Bella sat above him. Jasper frowned at the ceiling, wondering why Bella's ex-husband felt it necessary to call.

"They haven't arrived, yet. I'm sure they'll want to know you called. What? _Excuse_ me?" A pause ensued during which Bella's emotions ramped up. Jasper growled because another male was agitating one of his women. How caveman was that? He endeavored to calm himself.

"Edward, you have no need to concern yourself. I'm happy. You're happy, right? Okay, so let me be happy without making that an issue. No, I'm not particularly wanting to know. No. What, you want me to wallow? You think I'm acting like a rebellious teenager? Excuse me? You're the one who persuaded me to 'grow up' into an adult before you'd change me. Oh, I did? Well still, your influence. No, I'm not blaming this on anyone."

Fury, righteous indignation and love tinged with guilt plunged to him from the upper level. Every instinct told Jasper he needed to get up there and handle things for Bella, but instinct wasn't what he needed. Wasn't what she needed either.

By the window, Alice held still, her eyes focused on the ceiling. She didn't say a word.

"I love them," Bella said more softly. "Both of them, yes. And we're going to live together, yes. Yes, one bed. It's not like we're asking you to join us," she added with a nervous laugh. "I'm not — _we're_ not asking for your approval, so don't worry." Defiance flared so brightly he could almost see it. "We're done with this discussion. I'm not asking you to live under this roof and we are certainly not rejoining the Cullens. Yes, of course he is. Yes, of course it works. Look, Edward — fine. I'm sure we will. Thank you and our best to Bronwyn. Goodbye."

Jasper met Alice's gaze and they held still, waiting to see if there would be any intervention needed with their Bella before this episode would be closed. But no, it was quiet upstairs. Too quiet.

"I'll go up," Alice volunteered.

Torn, Jasper decided to be okay with that because cars were driving up to the house. Someone had to play host.

Emerging like a vengeful ghost out of the deeper hues of darkness, Emmett strode almost violently up to the door where Jasper waited. "Emmett."

"Jasper. What the _hell_ do you think you're doing, here?" Without warning, the giant of a man pushed Jasper's shoulder to step in the house.

Jasper stumbled just a bit before moving and pushing back. "Look, Emm. Don't even start this here. Not in front of everyone." From upstairs, he felt the distinctive emotional signatures of his wife, who was worried and defensive, and of Bella, who was flaring guilt and love and protectiveness. That they were upset angered him further and he set his jaw. "Outside. Now."

"Fine," Emmett spat.

Jasper had had fights with Emmett in the past. Sometimes, they were just to relieve stress, but other times, they had been serious. Earlier on in Jasper's association with the family, he'd made a misplaced remark about Rosalie and her pride and Emmett had come down on him like a Kansas tornado.

Stomping across the snow-covered expanse of yard, they headed toward the tree line. This seemed to be Jasper's preference and he acknowledged that it was because he felt there was privacy to be had away from the house. As they went, Jasper monitored Emmett's emotions and felt Carlisle's as well, as the older man jogged up behind them.

"Thought I'd come along, just in case one of you had to be put back together. Again," Carlisle said with humorous detachment.

Emmett was furious, indignant and protective. He had the feeling of a man going to war; something with which Jasper was far too familiar. Carlisle was a tad amused and curious, but Jasper could feel nothing judgmental in his emotions. Good.

It took little time to reach the end of the cleared land. Jasper clenched his fist against the fury that had been building in him with every step. He did not need to project into a volatile situation. "All right," he ground out as Emmett took an aggressive stance as well. "What is your problem?"

With a glance at Carlisle, Emmett heaved out a huge breath. "I'm angry, damn it. What is it with you? Being mated to a hot little pixie isn't enough? You have to take advantage of the walking wounded, too?"

Control. He found it somewhere under his sternum. "Take. Advantage? Of Bella? Do you think I would _dare_?"

"You know how broken she was when Ed found Brat - er, Bronwyn. You and Alice took on a responsibility, Jasper. Not a fresh piece of ass!"

"Jasp–" Carlisle began, but too late.

Jasper gave the bigger man no warning, no telegraphing of moves. He just struck out powerfully with one fist and a blast of shame that Emmett should have been feeling but wasn't. Oh, he would, though. Jasper would see to that. The combination of physical punch and emotional overload actually knocked Emmett to his knees. "She is not a _fresh piece of ass_ , Emmett. I _love_ Bella. I love Alice, and Alice loves Bella. _Bella_ loves _us_. It's not that complicated."

Shame still hanging in his eyes, Emmett launched himself at Jasper. Prepared, Jasper just stepped aside and let the large man fall over with the force of his own volition. Then, he stepped on Emmett's neck. Hard. With his booted foot. "You listen to me right now. I am an empath. I know what I feel. I know what she feels and I swear to you, Emmett, that I didn't manipulate her, nor am I guilty of any of the other accusations you plan on throwing at me."

"I don't get it," Emmett confessed without the fury. He sounded more confused and concerned. "Jasper, let me up, man."

Slowly, Jasper did so, seeing his brother of decades rise slowly, hands up in a patent show of non-aggression. "What don't you get?"

"Two? I mean, sure, Bella's gorgeous — she is and you know it so just pipe down." Jasper didn't react, because Emmett was right and there was nothing disrespectful in his reference to her. On the contrary, Emmett's love for Bella, the fraternal kind, was clear and bright. "And I can bet that if you've got all that goin' on, it's good and all that, but Jasper? What about _her_? Was she even ready for this? When we fall in love, it's the big change, bro. For you, too. How can you love her like she deserves when you're mated?"

 _Good questions_. Carlisle wafted approval and agreement, but silently. He was clearly with them as a spectator and physician. That was fine with Jasper.

"Emm, Edward found his mate in 2016. Five years ago this summer. Don't you think Bella would know her own mind by now? Yes, they were in love. I know how real that was for both of them but," he went on with a quick glance at Carlisle, "love _isn't_ the big change. Finding the _mate_ is the big change. Falling in love is wonderful, but it's not the same as the mate bond. You know that. If it were, Edward would not have been drawn to Bronwyn at all. They didn't have time to get to know each other. Here, though, Bella's been a part of our lives since Edward fell in love with her when she was still in high school. She's been part of our lives, Alice's and mine, for almost five years. She's had time to heal, we made sure. And she has and she loves us and we love her."

"And Alice is okay with this?" Emmett's big brother tone hadn't changed a whit; Alice was his sister, too.

Jasper nodded, refusing to pump soothing overtones into the confrontation. This had to absolutely be non-manipulative. The burst of shame notwithstanding. Emmett had deserved that to every last muscle fiber. "She loved Bella as her dearest friend for a long time. Now, it's more. I felt it, I've seen them together — No, you ape, not like _that_. It's not like that for them."

"Rose is gonna flip her shit, man," Emmett said next. Jasper felt the brief bursts of sexual interest that were immediately tamped down by a dose of chagrin and imagined that Emmett was thinking of Bella and Alice making love together. But it was, naturally, not something Big Brother Emmett wanted to visualize so he kept pushing it out of his head.

Jasper shrugged in response to Emmett's comment about his own mate. "I can't help that. We're not asking any of you to congratulate us or throw us a party. We just want to live on our own, like we are."

Silence fell with suddenness between them. Jasper let it, because he knew this would take some digestion.

Carlisle stepped closer. "Jasper, I think you're very brave. And I, for one, am thankful that Bella found love with people so worthy. I had been concerned for her, I confess, but she has found her own way." He smiled a little and rubbed his hands together. Acting human for Carlisle was almost his first nature, after hundreds of years of imitation. "That shouldn't have surprised me as much as it has; Bella has always done the unexpected."

"That's for damned sure," Emmett muttered. "So I don't have to rip your head off?"

"Not today."

"What if she finds her mate, Jasper?"

"We've talked about it, the three of us." No need to get into specifics, he felt. "Alice and I will let her go with our best wishes. But Alice...hasn't seen it happen, yet. She's keeping an eye out, though."

"Good," Emmett and Carlisle said together.

"And Carlisle? I don't think you need to worry about Bella anymore. I've kind of taken her as my responsibility."

A sharp lift of the pale blond head. He understood exactly what Jasper was saying. " _Have_ you?"

"Yes."

"Well, a coven of three is more of a standard size among our kind," Carlisle acknowledged with a nod. "But Bella will always be my daughter," he added with a firm paternal edge.

"Understood."

The men stepped toward the lighted house in unison, their shoes crunching on the packed snow. With a laugh, they decided to run, faster than the human eye could see, and they arrived at the house with grins on their faces.

Bella and Alice, arms around each other, were standing alertly by the fireplace. "Well?" Alice asked.

"It's all good," Jasper assured her, sending her and Bella a wave of the love he bore for them.

Rosalie appeared patently disinterested, but she gravitated toward her mate as Esme did to hers. Alice and Bella opened a space so that Jasper would be next to each of them, his arms proudly encompassing them. The scrutiny of the others was tangible.

It was also brief. In the space of only a few breaths of air, Esme said, "So! West Virginia! Do you have a house picked out?"

Smiling, Alice rolled up and pressed her lips to Jasper's jaw and took Esme upstairs to her office to show Esme what she had. Bella hugged Jasper close for a moment and, with a deep look into his eyes, she kissed him in front of the rest of the family before moving away to talk to Emmett.

The family had just split, but Jasper felt complete and whole with the love of two very good women and the regard of men he respected. Existence did not get any better than that.

* * *

**  
**


	20. Epilogue: All I Need is Right Here Beside Me

 

The first time, Bella hadn't been able to conceive of spending a week in the same house as Edward and Bronwyn. The Cullens had relocated to Scotland two years prior, the Whitlock Coven having moved to West Virginia at about the same time, and the Cullens had wanted a "family reunion."

Alice was hunting with Bella and Jasper in the early hours of the morning when the vision came to her. She stopped in mid-leap – inconvenient vision! – and felt the other two surround her, concerned until they saw the light in her eye.

"What is it?" Bella wondered. She had confessed privately to Alice that she would worry that every vision was of a future mate and the prospect did not please her. Or Alice or Jasper, either.

With a placating hand on the other woman's arm, Alice shook her head, searching through her memory of what she had seen. "Not _that_ , sweetie. I see everyone on Isle Esme, though. I'm there too, but, huh. You and Jasper aren't." She closed her eyes and concentrated.

_Bella and Jasper on the floor in front of the fireplace of their West Virginia mountain home. Bella was returning Major Whitlock's salute with full appreciation, yes she was. Jasper's huge hands encompassed Bella's breasts before he licked his way down between her thighs..._

"No, you two will be quite busy!" she said with a salacious grin.

Jasper wrapped one arm tightly around her, concern sliding carefully from him to her. She beamed and rolled up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "Oh, no. See, I'm not telling you what I just saw, but it'll be totally fine, trust me." Then, her effervescence came down several notches. "Bella, you won't want to be at the reunion, so you two will sit this one out."

Bella appeared briefly uncomfortable, moving to play with her ponytail while holding Alice's hand in her free one. "Sure that won't be a problem?"

Alice squeezed her fingers. "Not even. Like I said, I've already seen it."

The first "reunion" came and, after awkward silences and an impatient phone call from Alice, Jasper made his advances and did indeed salute Bella in all his naked splendor. They made love on the bearskin rug, no blindfold necessary. But they agreed they missed Alice.

When she returned, they tackled her. "Come on, it's better with you," Bella insisted, surprising Jasper as she hefted the smaller woman over her shoulder before running up the stairs. Not to be outdone, Jasper took the first step in disrobing, and soon the Whitlock Homecoming Lovemaking Session was going full-speed.

Sated and smiling broadly, Alice draped herself later across the other two. "So. They were really kind of disappointed you didn't come to the reunion."

Bella tensed. "Seriously? Do they think everything is going to be all simple, now?"

Jasper brushed a kiss over Bella's temple. "No, I'm sure they were just missin' you, hon."

Alice spun and was sitting cross-legged in a blink. "I knew it wouldn't be what you wanted, Bella, so I didn't commit us for the next one."

"Good."

Alice leaned forward to catch Bella's hand. "But, there'll be another one in a few years, on Isle Esme. They're going to rework the whole house and make it into a resort!" She couldn't keep the excitement from her voice.

Jasper grinned. "A resort, huh?"

"Absolutely. There's going to be quite a crowd."

* * *

Bella felt nervous but excited as she and Alice prepared to join Jasper in the lagoon off the deck of the enlarged "resort" Esme had designed on Isle Esme. Bella was actually being brave enough to consider a bikini.

"Confidence, Bella," Alice had said while they packed for their trip. "You are beautiful. I think so. Jasper thinks so, and so does every single man in your department at the university." Bella and Jasper were teaching, again. Almost as if it were merely an incidental, Alice said, "You've been so happy and you want it to show, right?"

Bella had embraced Alice warmly. Though physically entirely comfortable with one another – nudity was normal, holding hands, embracing, cheek-kissing were all daily standards – they had never developed a blatantly sexual relationship. Nor did they want one. (The one time Jasper had asked for "a show" didn't count as it was entirely a visual experience for the empath, not an emotional one for themselves, exactly.) They loved one another deeply and that was that.

"I _am_ happy and I want the whole family to know," Bella affirmed.

"Good. Then wear this."

"This" was a bright red bikini. Blowing out a breath, Bella stripped from her shorts and tank top and slid the bikini on. It wasn't a flashy suit, but it was very strategically arranged, covering the necessaries while revealing the beginnings of curves that she really never revealed in public. Bella stared at herself, Alice looked at her admiringly, and they met one another's eyes in the mirror.

"Told you."

"Fine."

The two women left the room via the sliding glass wall that overlooked the lagoon. Stepping out on the deck, Alice wound her arm with Bella's and Bella kissed the top of her spiky black hair. "Love you."

"Love you, too. So. Jasper's in the water."

"Let's —"

"No, first, we're going to remind everyone how awesome you are."

Bella laughed and the golden sound captured the attention of anyone who had not already seen them. There was, as Alice had once predicted, quite a crowd. Carlisle and Esme, of course. They had been living here for the past year. Emmett and Rosalie were conversing with Kate and Alistair, with Emmett frozen mid-gesture as Bella and Alice met his eyes. Bella's lips twitched. Jasper was in the clear blue-green lagoon, standing tall with the water lapping teasingly against his thighs. Bella tugged at Alice's hand. "Come on, let's go join him." There wasn't even a question as to whom she meant.

Alice stepped with her off the wooden deck but did not turn to the water. Instead, she turned. "Let's do a circuit."

"Alice..."

"Please? You're not going to have to do this again for _years_ ," Alice whispered in Bella's ear so that no one else could hear.

With a chuckle, Bella acquiesced.

"Carlisle, Esme! The place looks wonderful," she began. Bella could feel Jasper's focus on them, his love, his interest, and also a sheering edge of protectiveness that she had learned to discern he projected when they were in the company of other men. Over the next several minutes, the two women strolled, hand in hand, to visit with the others who were shining brightly under the tropical sun.

Alice felt extremely smug to see Bella carry herself with grace and happiness. "Oh, Rosalie, is that a new ring? It's beautiful. Kate! So good to see you. Alistair," she said, with a nod. "I had heard you were trying out our diet."

The reserved gentleman rose to his feet, a smile touching his orange eyes. It was a careful expression, but Bella met it with a lift of her chin as he said, "I am, yes. You are looking to be in good hands, Isabella," he added with a glance at where Bella's fingers twined with Alice's.

"I am!" Bella smiled and followed his look. At their wrists, gold metal clinked lightly. They had commissioned three matching bracelets, made with three plaited gold strands and closed with three circles. Her smile deepened as she remembered the soul-deep contentment she had felt when she and Jasper and Alice chose them and wore them the first time. Her eyes still stung to remember the peaceful beauty of that moment.

No mention did anyone make of Bronwyn. Or Edward, for that matter. That pair was off on a walk about the island. Edward did his best to escape the crowd of voices as he could, Bella understood.

Bella inhaled and concentrated as she and Alice made their way to the lagoon, where their man was waiting for them. "He really is sexier in the board shorts than he was in the wetsuit," Bella remarked under the cover of her expanding shield. She had been working on it over the years so that it could keep the three of them safe. She had even learned to project it beyond herself.

"I can hear you underneath the Um-Bella," Jasper teased. Groaning, the women skipped through the water to reach his side, surrounding him with their arms and full-body embraces. "I can feel that," he murmured, and Bella grinned, knowing pretty much exactly how much love and desire he was absorbing by how much he was cycling back to them.

"Two on one!" Alice cried and, in moves long practiced, she and Bella jumped and pushed Jasper into the water, so that he went under and stayed there.

They all did, for more than a few minutes. When they emerged, it was to complete silence. "Is it even safe to go in the water now, guys?" Emmett inquired, his voice curling with amusement.

"Of course!" Bella called in response. "I'm not even going to ask what you thought was happening, Emmett!"

"The water's clear as the sky," Jasper added. Then, with a wicked gleam in his golden eyes, he started to walk to the lagoon's edge. "Of course, you and Rose can check that out for yourselves..."

Their teasing was halted by the appearance of Edward and Bronwyn. Feeling suddenly protective, Bella extended her shield so that it did make something like an umbrella over and around herself, Jasper and Alice.

"What is it?" Jasper wanted to know. "You've got concern and protection going pretty strong, hon." He stiffened and looked around. "Something wrong?"

Alice smiled up at him. "She's just protecting us from _him_."

They all relaxed, but Bella kept her shield in place. Alice turned and waved at her favorite brother, for so he would always be to her. "Edward! Bronwyn! Hi! Want to come swimming?"

Bella backed into Jasper as it appeared that the other couple would be joining them. "Alice," Edward said, pulling his mate into the water with him. Bronwyn did not look happy, but she wasn't about to leave her mate alone with his ex, either, Bella understood.

"This is all so human," she remarked.

With a squinting of his eye, Edward regarded her. "You've really learned how to control your shield!"

Jasper wrapped an arm around her shoulders and Alice, standing with them, curled around her husband's body. "You've no idea," they said together. Jasper, Bella decided, was feeling singularly self-satisfied.

"So how is Canada?" she asked Edward, also meeting Bronwyn's amber eyes so as to assure the woman that she wasn't afraid of her, for Pete's sake.

Edward raked a hand through his hair and she smiled. No matter what he had ever done, that hair had never behaved without huge amounts of "product." "Well, the hunting's good, of course. School is different. We only have to attend classes three days a week with this new system they've got, so it's less of a trial," he said with a smile. "But you know. High school is high school."

Alice sighed a little. "I sometimes miss high school."

"Oh, like we could go?" Jasper snorted. His relief at not having to be surrounded by so many hormonal teenagers was palpable within Bella's shield.

But not outside of it. With an impatient gesture, Edward pushed out a breath. "This is so frustrating, not hearing you."

"Aw, c'mon, Brother! I thought you'd be relieved!" Alice tapped Bella's temple. "I know I am. Not having to translate _Dune_ into Farsi to keep you out of my thoughts is kind of a treat."

Bronwyn got brave. "It was very strange, Bella. One of our textbooks had you listed on the editorial credits. Edward was very proud of you."

"Thank you. We're publishing our own series for high school students this next year, Jasper and Alice and I. Trying for a holistic, thematic approach but with some older and more traditional methods. It's been a challenge, but we found a good publisher. Alice," she went on, kissing the Sprite on the head, "is a financial whiz, as you know, and her units have been brilliant."

"And what's really great is that if the sales go well, we might just take a few years off," Jasper added. "Alice has this neverending list of activities we started with Bella a while back, and we'd like to finish them."

Oh, that wasn't all they planned on doing with their time off, Bella knew. Promises of some exotic sexual encounters lingered in Jasper's tone, but fortunately, Edward couldn't see into Jasper's head for visuals.

After some more chit-chat, the Cullens and Whitlocks gathered to arrange a hunting schedule in addition to other activities. Jasper felt a surge of mischief from Bella but the family members were all standing so close, shoulder-to-shoulder, that he couldn't even whisper his curiosity.

Her impudence spiked and he unconsciously braced himself. Was Bella going to embrace him under her shield and overwhelm him with desire? She had before, in cahoots with Alice, and those two minxes had almost caused a scene.

He completely let that worry go within a minute.

Edward started fidgeting like fire ants had climbed in his drawers. His expression tightened, eyes darting around with suspicion.

_Edward? You okay?_

Nothing. No response. Jasper could not even feel him. And then, he figured it out and he had to laugh and embrace Bella loosely. Alice's expression showed him that she was totally in on this minor assault on Edward's gift.

"By all that's holy," Edward whispered at the same moment.

"Edward! What is it?" Carlisle insisted, arrowing a look at his first-created.

"I — I can't hear you. Any of you." And then, he gaped at Jasper and his ever-more-enthusiastic guffaws before shifting his gaze to Bella's impassive face. "You."

"Hm?"

Relaxing, he smiled crookedly. "Nice one, Bella."

"What the hell is going on?" Emmett demanded. He figured it out in next to no time, answering his own question. "Dude! Bella shut you down!"

The worry dissipating instantly, Bella continued to nestle in Jasper and Alice's embrace. Edward gazed at her in mild awe. "What an amazing creature she is," he murmured.

Bella gasped at such a comment, but Jasper was quick to avenge her. Bella removed her shield and the empath threw a combination of hysteria and mirth to his brother the mind-reader that had Edward all but rolling on the ground while the family watched, guilty and amused.

"And on that note," Alice piped up, "I think we've got first hunt!"

* * *

Hunting almost always led to sex with these two, Bella reflected for the two-thousandth time. It was about the two-thousandth, too; her brain kept track of everything.

They had taken the yacht to the mainland, docking quietly. Alice was an accomplished pilot – who knew? – and the trip was a quick cruise. Swiftly, they hiked from the harbor to the jungle, going the speed of the rare human observer at that hour, until they were safely under the canopy of trees and shelter of wild shrubbery. They ran together as it was unfamiliar territory, with Jasper leading the way. He really had taken to the role of Leader and Bella and Alice agreed that it only ramped up his overall sex appeal.

Alice always remembered to thank Bella, too, when that leadership quality transferred to the bedroom.

They followed a lesser river, and Bella found her prey first. She had resolved to only take down one animal and that animal turned out to be a tapir. Not a terribly attractive mammal, it still put up a good fight before she managed to snap its spine.

Finishing, she followed Alice and Jasper's scents into the deeply-hued forest. Jasper took down a jaguar, his long, lean body wrestling it with near seduction to the ground. Alice took a pair of ocelots, their smaller body mass making it quick for her to drain two in short order. Once sated, Bella felt the feral, needy pulling within her. Her body had relearned the ecstasy of immediate gratification after a hunt. When Alice and Jasper were within touching distance again, she pulled them both close, nuzzling Alice's head and pulling restlessly at Jasper's shirt to caress the small of his back. Alice slipped her hand to her mate's abdomen.

Obviously aroused, the leader of their coven kissed them each in turn, bringing them to a groaning, groping frenzy, before leading the run back to the dock. It was silent, his gift extending before them to sense any humans. At this late night/early morning hour, there were none on the deserted route. Bella untied the yacht, Alice took the helm and, by mutual agreement, they each kept to themselves for the duration of the trip back to Isle Esme. To tease the empath she loved, Bella concentrated hard and pushed feelings of insane desire toward him. He growled and, just as he was going to stroke himself, Alice laughed a little.

"No, we're waiting! You just keep the stallion in the corral, there, cowboy."

He snorted. "You did _not_ just quote _City Slickers_."

The laughter relieved the heavy, heated tension that stretched between the three of them.

The extended compound on Isle Esme was not entirely dark when they docked on the pier that had been recently repainted. "I don't want to see anyone," Bella whispered.

"We'll go to our own suite," Jasper assured her, the three of them holding hands, their steps almost soundless, even on the sands, as they approached the lagoon-side of the enlarged dwelling. Around them, birds made quiet night-noises. The waters crested with gentle waves at low tide. From within, the Whitlocks could hear the sounds of different pairs in their private rooms.

Alice all but skipped into the suite after sliding the door open. "This is going to be epic."

With a playful growl, Jasper whisked Alice off her feet and over his shoulders. Bella ran ahead to start the shower while the other two disrobed one another before they both divested her of her hunt-stained clothing. Salt and green and fur and dirt were kicked aside as the three vampires stepped into the reservoir-fed, solar-heated shower.

Laughter calmed to smiles as they washed one another, all three. Hands lingered on breasts and hips, fingers caressed collarbones as soap did away with the last of the hunting residue. Smiles widened as the cleaning grew more intimate. Cupping, stroking, lips skating on water-warmed skin.

"I need you," Bella murmured as she and Alice did their best to torment their lover.

Alice shut down the shower, her tiny body weaving in and out to make sure all the nozzles were off before Jasper extended one long arm for an enormous bathsheet. He dried Alice with great care before applying himself to Bella, leaving both women heavy-lidded with desire.

They took the damp towel and, holding it between them, dried Jasper off before dropping the towel to the floor in favor of embracing with arms and hands and legs and bodies. Under the light of the bathroom fixtures, Alice smiled.

"You really need to let _go_ , Jas," she told her mate.

Mischief sparked through the passion in his gaze. "That was my intention."

Her skin was so sensitive, Bella remarked once again as she, Jasper and Alice piled onto the immense bed of their suite. Soft sheets were cool on their skin, but they pushed the fabric aside. Jasper knelt, his erection prominent as he kissed each woman and urged them to lie down.

"My turn," he murmured. He was rewarded by a resurgence of lust and desire that were as thick and welcome to him as the scents of their arousal. The women clasped hands, their fingers entwined as he decided to go alphabetically.

Alice... His mate... His purr rumbled within him as he nuzzled up her slender legs, while one hand rested on Bella's thigh. Alice's skin was never "usual" but always exciting to him. Nibbling his way lightly up to the apex of her thighs, he teased her, blowing soft puffs of air of her sensitive skin. She whimpered and he felt the tightening of her muscles as she gripped Bella's hand.

Bella turned a little to stroke his back while he tasted Alice. His hand slid further up Bella's leg and he began to tease her as well, compelling her to rock subtly on his hand, seeking friction. Alice wasn't so subtle, pushing her sex against his mouth and nose. His own need built exponentially as his ladies absorbed his desire and returned it with their own.

He brought Bella to her first climax with his hand and Alice reached satisfaction through the sole use of his tongue. Her taste was still filling his mouth when she pulled him up to kiss her. Bella, always eager to explore with her own lips, scooted down the bed to kiss his hips. He growled softly into Alice's mouth as his mate let go of Bella's other hand and used both of her own on him.

Between Alice's hands and Bella's clever tongue, Jasper knew he wouldn't last long at all. His own passion erupted in Bella's mouth and, from all over the island, he could hear the distant, surprised participation of the others in the family.

"Up," he directed Bella.

Alice licked her lips and said, "Wait. I want to taste."

They both winked at Jasper and he knew they did this just for him; his empathy detected no actual lusting for one another, but their love for each other and for him was amply demonstrated as they kissed each other and shared his essence in front of him.

It was almost enough to bring him off again.

"My turn," he insisted once he had mastered himself. Happily, Bella offered her hands to him so that he could bring her to do as he wanted. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you, too."

As Jasper possessed Bella's body, Alice caressed them both, her joy palpable, light and encompassing. "I love us _three_ ," she declared.

It was nothing more than the utter truth.

_**\- - The End - -** _

* * *

**. . .**

**. . .**

**Q & A**

_Here's where my head was on a few key issues._

* * *

**What is up with Edward and the mate bond?**

A mate bond, in my current streak of AUs, is only possible between creatures of the same species. Like vampires. A vampire and a human may fall in love, but they will not be mates unless they are able to define that when they are _both_ vampires. Edward could hope, but he couldn't know for certain. So though it was sad, it was also something he had no say over and could not have checked for a real bond before Bella "gave up everything" for him.

**Bella gave up what?**

Bella wanted to be a vampire. Knowing what was involved, she chose to be changed. At no time during the course of this story did she regret this, even when Edward found his mate. She gave up her humanity, but it was a choice she made with her eyes wide open. She might have done it all for Edward initially, but in canon, Bella takes to the vampire life almost too easily - as if it were her natural state. Her life was initially defined by Edward, but it didn't remain that way.

**Why didn't you give Bella a true mate of her own?**

There are three reasons.

 _One_ : It would have been too easy. Edward and Bella are HEA'ing. Edward finds mate. Bella survives, suffers, and experiences much angst. Bella finds mate. Ta-da. HEA for her, too. To me, this was boring. [Bittersweet, you can read on my profile, is my favorite flavor.]

 _Two_ : I wanted all her learning and growing past her heartache to have a purpose. So she had to grow and become a stronger person, capable of making her own decisions and choices in her life.

 _Three_ : If she had had a mate, then she would have been thrust into a compelled relationship. (I love compelled relationships, don't misunderstand, but that wasn't the purpose behind the plot of this story.) This would have taken away the choice she had had to learn how to make; making, in effect, the story a waste of time. Not having a mate was something I had decided upon before I ever chose to expand the _Heartbreak_ one-shot upon which this story is based.

**Why Didn't Jasper Say Something Years Ago About the Mate Bond?**

In the Cullen family, privacy is at a premium. What with the mind-reading, future-seeing and emotion-catching, combined with super-hero hearing, no one gets any privacy.

Except, perhaps, Bella. To a tiny degree.

When Bella was human, Jasper knew he couldn't detect a mate bond. When she was changed, as Edward says in chapter two of this story, Jasper knew there wasn't a bond and, hence, mind-reading Edward knew there wasn't a mate bond between himself and his beloved. Jasper had no intention of intruding into their marriage; they were happy. They were in love. These things he knew for certain.

As I told one reader, Jasper couldn't really go up to Bella one day after she was changed and tap her on the shoulder to say, "Bella? You **do** know you and Edward aren't really **mates** , right? Y'all are in love and it's great, but it's not a mate bond. Just FYI!" That would have been intrusive and cruel. He was there to support Bella while she healed from the heartbreak, but he couldn't really do a whole lot to forewarn her it might — maybe, there was a slight chance, perhaps, if they were really freaking unlucky — come.

**A note on the Cullens and how I see them:**

\- This is a family with a "We'll always be a family, come Hell or high water" mentality.

\- Edward leaves and drinks from humans? He comes home. All is well.

\- Rose is changed and hates her new life? She adapts and is grouchy but all is well.

\- Rose brings on someone not even APPROVED (gasp!)? Emmett is changed and all is well.

\- Newbies show up, one of whom slips rather more often than the family norm? They cover up and move on and all is well. Everyone ALWAYS adjusts.

\- Edward falls for a HUMAN? Well...sure, because he's happy now. They all adjust and stay together and all is well.

This is what they have ALWAYS done. They move a bit, adjust, and keep moving forward with the understanding that this is WHAT THEY DO. Always. They're not perfect.

I figure they're only human. ;-)

**Will There Be a Sequel?**

_Yes. :) It's Called Tender is the Night and I'll be posting it soon!_


	21. The Edward Outtake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I wrote Open Up Next to You for myself. The outtake, I wrote for my readers who were dying to know what was going on in Edward's head. I cannot promise you'll like it, but here it is, with my thanks to Katmom for pre-reading and the shouty-caps comments. We pick up exactly at the end of the epilogue.

 

* * *

**OUTTAKE - From Edward's Mind to Yours OR What the HELL Was He Thinking?**

**. . .**

**. . .**

**. . .**

Alice's voice reached him first, her unusual words catching his notice. "I love us _three_."

Then, he heard, "Oh, Jas... Oh..."

Used to tuning out the family while he and his mate made love, Edward was still slightly distracted by _Bella's_ voice. He covered his momentary pause by leaning to a different angle of penetration.

_You all right there, sweetheart?_

Bronwyn's mental voice caressed his thoughts. Of course, she heard Bella, too. With a crooked smile, he cupped his wife's backside and drew her more firmly against himself.

_Ah, right there... Oh, Edward..._

He blocked the other voices as best he could, though part of his over-interested vampiric brain was curious as to how the dynamic worked between Bella and Jasper and Alice. He was still quite surprised and even more put off by the fact that Bella had truly fallen in love with the mated pair. He didn't know how she could have allowed herself to do so.

The explosion of sexual heat that went off like a bomb encompassed both himself and Bronwyn so that their mutual climax sounded at almost the same time as those throughout the rest of the house. Bronwyn's amber eyes flew open with shock and she swore under her breath.

He shrugged and rested atop her, content to let his mind wallow in her post-coital thoughts. They were always warm and welcoming and, for a male intent upon bringing satisfaction to his mate, gratifying.

Suddenly, though, he was pulled roughly from Bronwyn's mind by an onrushing of vivid mental images.

 _Jasper_... Desire-dark eyes surrounded by waves of short blond hair, the feeling of cyclic ecstasy, hands, holding hands... _Alice_... Slender fingers brushing skin, large hands pressing into hips, the head lowers, desire peaks, teeth graze a shoulder...

Edward cringed internally but couldn't seem to look away. Bella's thoughts – he was _in her mind_ – would never cease to call to him. The elusive unattainable was undeniably compelling.

Emotions cascaded into the thoughts. Love, appreciation, wonder, excitement – all of these Edward recognized but there were others, too.

 _Sex god...harder..._ A pushing out of an emotion: amazement. _So that's how..._

Triumph...

And then, he felt Bella's climax from the entirely-too-intimate proximity of her own mind and he forced himself to find another's.

And it was Alice's – which didn't surprise him. He and his sister had always shared a deep affinity for one another. Briefly, he saw his ex-wife's naked body, her breasts surrounded by large, scarred hands. Alice's eyes were fixated there, it seemed, as Bella's body thrust rhythmically and the whole house heard Jasper's roaring orgasm...

Vastly uneasy, unwarrantably jealous, Edward plunged into Bronwyn's mind again, as if to seek shelter there. He had to discipline himself against this kind of intrusion. Bella's shield... Had the latest revelation been as purposeful as her earlier teasing of him, cutting off his mind from all the others?

She hadn't learned how to do any of that when they were married.

* * *

He remembered their marriage of course, making himself at the moment dwell on when he met his _mate_ ; for thinking of another woman during such an intimate moment was just wrong.

_The first touch of Bronwyn's hand..._

Warmth, sparkling warmth and a sense of coming home. A clarity of possession. A bone-touching intimacy had suffused his entire body, flooding his brain with pleasure as he shook the young female's hand. Her eyes were floridly crimson; they widened, her fingers gripping him tightly all of a sudden. He saw himself in her mind's eye: _Look at him._ _Oh, lord. Oh, lord. I want..._ Tousled hair, vampire-perfect features, but his eyes had grown dark and that had turned the female on, sexually.

Belatedly letting go of her, Edward pushed out a quick breath and, with more haste than was polite, he had all but dragged Bella out of Alistair's home.

It nearly ended him, leaving Bronwyn. The remembered pain of leaving Bella all those years ago compared, but was not equal to it.

 _Mate. Mate. Mate_. His mind and dead heart chanted. _Mate. Mate. Mate._

No! He couldn't! He loved Bella Marie Swan Cullen! She was the love of his existence. The shooting star flaring through his lifeless midnight. _Bella...!_

But within, pulling at his very center, there was Bronwyn. The girl with the ink-dark hair and roguish accent who had affixed herself to his granite innards in an undeniable way.

 _I don't want this!_ he had protested internally for days. _I won't have it! I love my wife!_

Back within the familiar love and warmth of the family, he had tried to take his wife, his beloved Bella, into his arms. Into bed. But he couldn't. She hadn't seemed to mind, but he knew that when the family orchestrated the hunt, she would be expecting their usual heated intimacy. In bed. Or against a tree. Or in the water –

Days he resisted. Days. His mind grew distracted. His body weakened. He fell victim to a fugue period that lasted for longer than he could have anticipated.

Until Bella had confronted him about it. First with playfulness, then with sober concern.

Wrenching, that was. He had wept tearlessly as he drove away.

On Isle Esme, as the thoughts all over the small island settled into what he recognized as the post-mating harmonic hum, Edward sighed quietly. Bronwyn traced a slow pattern over his chest and he had to smile.

"Maybe we should go next, eh?" she whispered near his shoulder. _Hunting, love. We could go hunting and I could practice my song._

Chuckling, he tugged her over on top of himself. Oral sex, she had said once, reminded her of practicing to sing at a microphone. So, between the two of them, she would practice her song. It was an innocuous phrase. She did sing, after all, as he accompanied her. Bronwyn had a lovely voice and a sure sense of pitch and harmonics. Her thoughts at the moment imagined the two of them in the rainforest, her on her knees before him.

He groaned, his arousal reawakening, and remembered the first time he had had sex with Bronwyn.

It wasn't even love, at first. It was just the draw. The pull. The need to be _one_ with her.

Rejoining her and Alistair in the U.K., his heart not the same as it had been; he had restrained himself. He was not going to have sex with that woman while he was a married man. It was a matter of honor.

She had tried, though. Once she discovered his unique gift, her thoughts filled with what she wanted to do. His mate was no untried innocent.

Her blatant experience should not have appealed to him. Neither should her eyes have done. But they did.

Almost, he had been tempted to hunt with her...but he had not.

"I'm her sire, I'll take her," Alistair had informed him early on. The older vampire had looked very superior when he added, "You are unaccustomed to controlling a ravenous hunter."

Edward had rolled his eyes, but did not insert himself between a man and his created offspring.

The first time she had returned after a fresh hunt after the divorce, her thoughts were filled with sex. She wanted it. She wanted him. Edward could not help but let his mate have her way. Hearing her excitement, her wish to please him, her fulfillment as he erupted within her – it was more than he had ever had.

The first time he acknowledged this to himself, he had to run far away from Bronwyn. Far over the border into the north. Far...

 _Bella..._ He had thought, his mental radar pointing west to where he knew she was. _Bella..._ How could he regret having had to have left her but regret that he hadn't had this kind of experience with his first love?

He crumpled in the darkness, surrounded by empty fields, his regret crashing into the rough stones that rose proudly through the rolling ground.

_Edward...! Edward...!_

Running south, he had heard Bronwyn's voice, the tone of her mind desperate, agonized, lost. Remorse overcame him. He ran, leaping a wall and almost breaking a door in his urgent need to comfort, to soothe. "Bronwyn."

 _Back, he's back. Didn't go back to her, he's back._ Desperation, near-sobbing relief permeated her mind. He lifted her and pressed her tightly to himself, sitting on the stone floor to cradle her against his body. "I'm here. I'm sorry. I'm here."

It was in that moment that he realized he loved her. For all her imperfections, she was his mate and his whole being became as absorbed in caring for her as Emmett did for Rosalie.

* * *

He found her, clothes torn, blood spattering over her skin. In her mind, she was cringing before him, terrified that her appearance would hurt or distress him. _Bear. A bear._ She had hunted a bear the first time they crossed the ocean to Canada. Taking her from Alistair – to the misanthrope's intense relief – had led to many trials, but she had hunted a bear.

Hearing her mental distress, he smiled and extended a hand to her. "Shall we shower?"

Loving relief suffused her thoughts. _Good, yes, of course._

It hadn't been like that always. The _next_ time, her guilty thoughts and the images of her prey had preceded her appearance into their home. A woman – a woman who reminded Edward of Bella, actually – had been the victim of Bronwyn's uncertain appetite.

"Oh, Bronwyn. What have you done?"

"They're our prey!" she shot back, defiance and fear. _I'm sorry! I'm sorry! But she smelled good and I missed the taste and, oh, Edward, I'm so sorry!_ Her words, though, were not penitent, which made Edward wary. "It's hard, you know, to resist..."

"I do know," he reminded her. "But, Bronwyn, we have to. _I have to_."

She approached him, sorrow and confusion in her crimson eyes. "I know," she whispered, arms reaching for him.

He pulled her close and hoped his wife would get past this sooner rather than later. With Alistair as her sire, she had not been encouraged from the first to avoid humans.

* * *

_I am so tired of being compared to Bella. She was not your mate._

Occasionally, Bronwyn grew petulant, even secure as she had tried to be in the bond their mate-hood had given them. When they first encountered Bella as a married pair a couple of years after his and Bella's divorce – the word still pained Edward to even _think_ – Bronwyn had protested.

_Why is she here? She's not your wife. I am!_

He enfolded her in his arms as they stood in their room. The memories of holding Bella in a similar position were not dimmed by the passage of a mere two years, and Edward grimaced internally. _Damn my perfect memory!_ "She's part of the family, even so. Carlisle and Esme consider her a daughter. She's been in our lives for years."

So, that night after the family hunt, when Bronwyn had needed him to reassure her and to make love to her, he had – falling into her mind and emotional responses to him as completely as he always did, aided by the undeniable ambiance of Jasper's emotional broadcasting. Edward always did his best to block out the others during post-hunt sex romps – it was the habit of decades, for him. He honestly didn't consider Bella and her needs, as her mind was so quiet and his mate was so – not.

But he knew – something in him knew – when Bella had run off.

 _Edward?_ Bronwyn had called from her sated mind as he simultaneously endeavored to collect himself and check on Bella through the others in the house. Mind after mind, though, showed the utter preoccupation with orgasms... _What is it?_

Damn.

And then, there was the sense of screaming – a sound he hadn't heard in two years. The sound of Bella's mind when she was angry, frustrated, afraid. Her mind!

Without even thinking about it, he had left, worried that she was somehow injured or in some difficulty.

Coming back, he had been subjected to a mental tirade.

_What is it with you and her? She's not your mate! I am! I know you're my mate but sometimes, Edward, I swear you make me want to – to rip off your head!_

Bronwyn's justified outrage was, thankfully, silent to the ears of the rest of the family, though it was clear from his thoughts that Jasper, at least, had an idea. Part of Edward's inner conscience admitted to missing the silence of Bella's mind. When they had had their marital issues – few, but they happened – she hadn't been able to bombard him with mind-direct admonishments.

Still, he knew that Bronwyn really did feel insecure sometimes, mate bond or no, so the two of them separated from the family for the rest of that evening to be alone together.

As the years passed, Edward did keep in touch and heard that Bella seemed to be doing better. The notion of her possibly taking up with different males was not always easy for him to hear, but he wanted her to be happy. Ideally, he wished she'd find her mate. When he heard from Esme that she had apparently entered into a romantic, polyamorous relationship with Jasper and Alice – who were supposed to have been looking out for her, not _corrupting_ her, by all that was holy! – he had to call her.

Making an excuse so that Bronwyn didn't have to listen to the conversation, Edward opted to go shopping for his mate – which he would do, purchasing her French lingerie – and calling Bella while he was about it. There was a small side street, half-hidden from a light drizzle. Edward ducked into it and pulled out his phone.

Bella's greeting was prosaic. "Edward, hi." She sounded terse.

"Hello, Bella. I was wondering if the family has arrived?"

"They haven't arrived _yet_ ," she replied politely, as if she were a receptionist at an office. "I'm sure they'll want to know you called."

With a quick breath, Edward had reviewed his options. He could just continue with the pretense of civility or get to what he really had to communicate to her. "Bella. I'm sorry. You know I am. I really wish you hadn't felt as if you had to seek, er, a relationship where you are. I know that this can't be what you –"

"Excuse me?" she snapped. He had never heard her sound so sharp, before. Defensive. Angry. Taken aback, he endeavored to find some way to calm her down so he could share his concern with her. Before he could, however, she spoke again. "Edward, you have no need to concern yourself with how I choose to live."

He clenched his teeth. "A threesome, Bella? That's –"

"I'm happy!" she shot back.

"But how –?"

"You're happy, right?"

"Of course I am. I just want you to be happy as well. With a _mate_ , not a mated _pair_. It's just not _– right_."

He heard her breath push through the connection. "Okay, so let me be happy without making _that_ an _issue_."

Edward growled, exasperated. "How can that not be an issue, Bella? Do you have any idea how this sounds?"

"No. I'm not particularly wanting to know."

"Bella –"

"No!" she shot back, defiance clearly biting off the word.

He inhaled deeply, casting about, feeling angry with her and worried for her and allowing the irritation he felt to come through in his voice. "My only wish is for your happiness, Bella." Regret then seeped in. "I can't take back what happened, in England." Would he, though, he had to ask himself. If he had known, would he have shaken Bronwyn's hand? Would he have missed out on his true mate to have saved the love he and Bella had shared? It was a question he had asked himself more than a few times these past years. He still had no answer. "I would never have hurt you purposefully. I just think you're rushing in, here. I know – I know you were hurt, greatly so, by what happened. You're not thinking clearly."

"What? You want me to wallow?" She sounded absolutely incredulous.

"No! I just don't want you falling into the first relationship you can, rebounding like a teenager!" He knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left his mouth, but she really upset him.

Her gasp was not at all sad. The air seemed as if it had been fired from her. "You think I'm acting like a – teenager? Excuse me? You're the one who persuaded me to 'grow up' into an adult before you'd change me."

"No, that was _your_ idea." Had she forgotten? Clearly. "I was going to change you after we married, but _you_ said you wanted more _human_ years."

She didn't miss a beat. "Oh, I did? Well, still, I was under your influence."

"Do not blame your current – current _relationship_ on me," he ground out. How she could get under his skin – even long distance – baffled him. He took another breath, hoping it would soothe him this time.

"No, I'm not blaming this on anyone," she said more calmly. Good.

He endeavored to keep the peace. He needed to get back to Bronwyn. "Are you sure?"

She sighed quietly. "I love them."

" _Both_ of them?" That was just so wrong-feeling to him. Made him squirm and twitch to consider – an odd thing for a vampire. "And you're – _together_?" He couldn't bring himself to say it.

" _Both_ of them, yes. And we're going to live _together_ , yes."

He slammed his eyes shut. "So, one bed and everything?"

"Yes! One bed. It's not like we're asking you to join us," she added with a shaky laugh.

"Bella..."

"I'm not – _we're_ not – asking for your _approval_ , so don't worry."

"This is not what you're meant for, Bella. Don't – don't settle for this. They're a mated pair and you'll just –" He slammed his teeth together again. "Go _home_ , Bella."

"We're _done_ with this discussion. I'm not asking you to live under this roof and we are certainly not rejoining the Cullens."

At the risk of hurting her again, but feeling as if it needed to be said anyway, Edward tried once more. "Jasper will always love Alice, you know. I cannot see a – a _physical_ relationship with you _working_."

Her voice was hard, flat and coolly polite. "Yes, of course he is. Yes, of course it works."

"Bella."

"Look, Edward —"

She was immovable. He sighed again. "Never mind. Just, have a good visit with the family." Surely Carlisle and Esme would talk sense to them. Surely.

Relief was clear in her voice. "Fine. I'm sure we will."

"Have a good evening, Bella. Give my regards to everyone."

"Thank you and our best to Bronwyn. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

* * *

Escaping from Isle Esme and the unexpected mental presence, disquieting!, of Bella Whitlock (for the three of them were using that name in their current location) with his mate was a relief. Still, as he piloted the yacht to the mainland (smelling Alice at the helm) he remembered how _happy_ Bella had appeared that afternoon in the lagoon. How protective and strong and fierce, just standing there with them. He tried to figure out his emotions, not wanting to have to struggle with them and hide his unease from Bronwyn.

He could only conclude that he was relieved that she was glowing, wrapped around Alice and Jasper. That she was apparently fulfilled. But he knew he would perhaps feel concern for her until she found a mate of her own. His own guilt would prick at him, year after year, as it had been for so long.

And if he _never_ had to see her making love with Jasper again, it would still be too damned soon!

**The End**

* * *

**  
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